Pro-Palestinian Democrat Ro Khanna Says He Was Detained By Armed Israeli Settlers
US Representative Ro Khanna was detained by armed Israeli settlers for over 90 minutes during a research mission to the ruins of Khirbet Zanuta. The town had been demolished by a bulldozer after persistent threats by nearby settlers drove out the native population a month prior.
While visiting the deserted Palestinian village, Congressman Khanna and his team were stopped by armed Israeli settlers. They brandished M4 machine guns, blocked their minibus, kicked their vehicle, and cursed at him and his team.
Khanna stated that once the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) arrived, they "they sided with the settlers and continued our detention."
"Being in the West Bank and in Israel is the first time that I have really been acutely aware of being brown."
Khanna stated, "...I saw the arrogance in the eyes of those settlers. 21 and 22-year-olds with guns, laughing that they had detained us. The arrogance of those young IDF soldiers that my tax dollars are funding. Having no respect for the fact that they were detaining Americans, no respect that there was an American congressperson in that bus and laughing when our translator told them that there are Americans there in the American embassy is concerned. It is the arrogance of power. A power that has had no accountability, total impunity, and has created a toxic culture of oppression."
Khanna's analysis that Jewish settlers have operated aggressively and with impunity is supported by the data.
Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights group, has monitored cases of settler violence against Palestinians since 2005: of investigation files it tracked through 2025, 93.6% closed without any indictment, and just 3% (53 of 1,701 files) ended in a full or partial conviction.
OHCHR's January 2026 report found that of more than 1,500 Palestinians killed between January 2017 and September 2025, Israeli authorities opened 112 investigations — resulting in only one conviction. At least 221 of the killed were children.
A 2022 Yesh Din data sheet shows Israeli police indict at 2.5 times the rate when the victim is Israeli rather than Palestinian.
In the West Bank, Palestinians face sweeping restrictions on movement through a network of checkpoints, roadblocks, and permit systems. In some areas, roads and transport networks are entirely segregated. This has led the International Court of Justice to find Israel responsible for apartheid.
"If this can happen to an American member of Congress, imagine what life is like for Palestinians who have no smartphones, no security, and no national platform."
20 Things the Media Will Never Tell You About Michael Jackson's 2005 Trial
The 2005 criminal trial of Michael Jackson was one of the most infamous courtroom spectacles in American history. Cameras were banned inside, tabloids were camped outside, and the world had largely already made up its mind. But what the media often failed to report — and what twelve jurors did absorb after 73 days of testimony — was just how deeply flawed the accusers' case actually was. After deliberating for roughly 32 hours, those jurors came back not guilty on all 14 counts.
"There wasn't a shred of evidence that was able to show us or give us any doubt in voting [not] guilty," one juror told reporters. "It was pretty obvious there was no other way to vote other than not guilty."
So what exactly were they seeing that millions of TV viewers weren't? Here are 20 of the most suspicious, contradictory, or just plain baffling details from the prosecution's case.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION: Gavin Arvizo is the boy that accused Michael Jackson of abuse. Star Arvizo is that boy's brother. Janet Arvizo is the boys' mother. Michael Jackson met the Arvizos in 2000 after the 10-year-old cancer patient expressed a wish to meet the singer. Later that year, they cut contact. They met again when Martin Bashir requested Gavin Arvizo came on the documentary they were shooting. This was in late 2002 and early 2003. Bashir deceptively edited this interview, bringing Jackson under intense media scrutiny. This caused District Attorney Tom Sneddon to begin his investigation.
1. The Molestation Allegedly Happened at the Worst Possible Moment
The prosecution's own timeline stated that the alleged abuse occurred after the February 2003 broadcast of Martin Bashir's documentary Living with Michael Jackson — the very moment when Jackson was under more public scrutiny than at any point in his career. Defense attorney Thomas Mesereau hammered this point relentlessly: prosecutors were asking jurors to believe that Jackson, knowing the world was watching him, chose that moment specifically to begin molesting a child he'd already known for years. Jurors cited this timeline problem as one of their central reasons for acquitting. Jackson, painted as a calculated, cunning man who had kept the family in captivity, had chosen to strike while the eyes of the world were fixed on him. It simply didn't make logical sense.
2. The "Kidnapping" Conspiracy Charges Were Demolished by Receipts
The prosecution charged Jackson with conspiracy to hold the Arvizo family captive at Neverland Ranch. The theory was that after the documentary aired, Jackson's team imprisoned the family to keep them from speaking out. But here's the problem: during the weeks the family was supposedly being held against their will, records showed they were out on all-expenses-paid shopping sprees and spa treatments. According to BBC News, "one of the logs shows the entire family left the ranch and returned several hours later." The defense also pointed out that Janet Arvizo told the jury she had tried to escape by taking the family to an orthodontist — a trip that Jackson's team apparently just… let them go on.
Then, the defense called the family's orthodontist, Dr. Seamount, to the stand. Dr. Seamount testified that Janet Arvizo made absolutely no attempt to ask for help, seek refuge, or mention that she was being restrained during the dental visit. The conspiracy charge had thoroughly backfired due to the family's own behavior.
3. A Key Adult Magazine Didn't Exist Yet When the Arvizos Were at Neverland
The Arvizo brothers testified that Jackson had shown them pornographic magazines during their time at Neverland Ranch. During cross-examination, Star Arvizo was shown a copy of a specific adult magazine and repeatedly confirmed that it was the exact one Jackson had shown him and Gavin. There was just one small issue: the Arvizos had not visited Neverland since March 2003, and the magazine Star identified was dated August 2003, five months after they had last been there. It was not possible for Star Arvizo's claims to be true.
4. Janet Arvizo Admitted on the Stand That She Had Lied Under Oath Before — It Was a Dry Run for the Jackson Allegations
The mother of the accuser — the person whose testimony was the backbone of the charges — openly admitted during cross-examination that she had previously lied under oath in a prior sexual abuse lawsuit. Under California jury instructions, a witness "who is willfully false in one material part of his or her testimony is to be distrusted in others." Defense attorney Robert Sanger stated bluntly: "This is not because she's a battered woman. It's because she lies for gain."
The lawsuit she lied in was itself damning. In 1998, after a shoplifting incident at a J.C. Penney, the Arvizo family claimed that store security guards had beaten and sexually assaulted Janet. The specific lie Janet had told to win that case was attributing bruises caused by her then-husband to the J.C. Penney security guards instead. And critically, no claim of sexual assault appeared in their initial July 1999 legal filing — it was only added a year later when the complaint was amended. The original police report showed no evidence of injuries. The Arvizos ultimately received a $152,000 settlement. Thomas Mesereau argued to the jury that this was a pattern — the Arvizos had learned to manufacture sexual abuse allegations to extract money from institutions. The structural similarity between the J.C. Penney case and the Jackson case is impossible to dismiss. The woman had a proclivity to lie for gain.
5. Janet Arvizo Was Later Charged With Welfare Fraud — Right After the Trial
Just two months after Jackson was acquitted, Janet Arvizo was charged with five counts of welfare fraud and perjury by Los Angeles County. The charges stemmed from her fraudulently collecting about $18,782 in government benefits while failing to disclose that she had a $152,000 settlement sitting in her bank account from the J.C. Penney lawsuit. She pleaded no contest and agreed to pay over $8,600 in restitution. This information was not fully presented to the jury because Janet invoked her Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination during trial — which itself is a notable move for a prosecution witness. When the woman whose testimony was meant to establish that Jackson was holding her family hostage refuses to testify about her own actions for fear of criminal prosecution, there's a glaring credibility problem.
6. Janet Arvizo's Testimony Was Such a Disaster That Prosecutors Began Objecting to Their Own Witness
If the factual contradictions in Janet Arvizo's testimony weren't damaging enough, her five days on the stand produced something almost unprecedented: by the end of her testimony, prosecutors were objecting to their own witness. According to CNN News, Janet was so far off-script and so damaging for the prosecutors' case that her own legal team began trying to shut down what she was saying mid-testimony. The New York Times described her performance as "rambling, incoherent, and at times combative." She ignored courtroom protocol, always turning to face the jury directly when answering questions rather than addressing the attorneys. She cried, argued, and at various points scolded the people in the room.
One juror later said she believed Janet was a scam artist. Another juror — Juror No. 5 — described the single moment that crystallized everything: "I disliked it intensely when she snapped her fingers at us. That's when I thought, 'Don't snap your fingers at me, lady.'" The jury foreman Paul Rodriguez later compared Janet's emotionally erratic behavior directly to Jason Francia's credibility problems as two of the biggest reasons the prosecution's witnesses failed. In a trial already short on evidence, the prosecution's star witness managed to actively alienate the people who were supposed to believe her.
7. The Arvizos Had A History of Targeting Celebrities For Money
One of the more quietly devastating stretches of the defense case came when Jay Leno, Chris Tucker, and George Lopez all took the stand and described their experiences with the Arvizo family. The picture that emerged was consistent across three entirely independent, credible witnesses: a family that used Gavin's cancer diagnosis as emotional leverage to extract money and favors from celebrities, and whose behavior ranged from strange to openly aggressive.
Jay Leno testified that he began receiving voicemail messages from Gavin, then a ten-year-old cancer patient, as part of his practice of making calls to sick children. But something felt off. Leno said Gavin sounded "very adult" and "scripted" — not like a child calling his hero, but like someone following a playbook. Gavin repeatedly called Leno "his hero," which Leno said struck him as strange. He eventually had to ask a mutual acquaintance to get Gavin to stop calling altogether.
George Lopez's testimony was arguably even more damning. Lopez gave money and gifts to the family after being told they had no health insurance and desperately needed financial help for Gavin's treatment. But that claim was false — the family had good health insurance that covered all of Gavin's medical costs. The situation deteriorated when the Arvizos accused Lopez of stealing $300 from Gavin's wallet. Lopez testified that when the father asked what he should tell his son, Lopez responded: "Tell him his father's an extortionist." Lopez cut ties with the family entirely.
Chris Tucker, the defense's final witness, confirmed he too had given money and gifts to the Arvizos out of sympathy. But he told the jury the family had taken advantage of him — calling him their "brother" and expecting far more than he was willing to give. He said he had even warned Michael Jackson about the family directly, describing them to Jackson as "cunning." And Tucker's then-girlfriend, Azja Pryor, added a crucial detail: she testified that Janet Arvizo had been excited about the family's planned trip to Brazil — the very trip that prosecutors claimed Jackson's team was plotting as a forced deportation scheme to silence them. Three celebrities, zero corroboration for the prosecution's narrative.
8. The Alarm System Contradiction Caught Star in a Logical Trap
The prosecution argued that Jackson had a bedroom alarm system specifically designed to alert him when anyone approached, implying he used it to create privacy for abuse. Star corroborated this theory. But Mesereau pointed out the obvious: if the alarm reliably notified Jackson whenever anyone approached his bedroom, how exactly did Star sneak in twice to witness the alleged abuse? Star's explanation — that the stairway door being shut muffled the sound — was then directly tested by the defense, who filmed a demonstration at Neverland Ranch showing the alarm was clearly audible even with the door closed. The witness's story was factually disproved.
9. Star Also Had a Prior Sworn Statement Directly Contradict His Trial Testimony
During cross-examination, Mesereau confronted Star about a 2000 sworn statement he had made in connection with the J.C. Penney case in which he said his "mother and father never fought." At the Jackson trial, the family's central narrative was that David Arvizo had physically abused Janet and the children for 17 years. Star admitted on the stand that he had lied in that earlier sworn statement. Two major prosecution witnesses had admitted to perjury in prior lawsuits.
10. The Los Angeles Department of Child and Family Services Had Already Investigated — and Cleared Jackson
Before prosecutors ever indicted Jackson, California's own child welfare authorities conducted an investigation. From February 14 to February 27, 2003 — just weeks after the documentary aired — the Los Angeles Department of Child and Family Services interviewed the Arvizo family and investigated the allegations. Their confidential report, which later leaked to the media, concluded that accusations of illicit conduct were "unfounded." This is the state's own child protective agency, talking to the very family who would later become the prosecution's star witnesses, finding nothing credible enough to warrant action. District Attorney Tom Sneddon went forward anyway.
11. The FBI Investigated Jackson for Over a Decade and Found Nothing
The FBI's involvement with Michael Jackson began in 1992 and continued through 2005. 16 hard drives were seized and thoroughly searched. Over 600 pages of Bureau files were eventually compiled — 351 of which were released publicly under the Freedom of Information Act. Their conclusion? The FBI "found no evidence of criminal conduct on Jackson's part." After a decade of active investigation, with access to resources and capabilities far beyond local law enforcement, the FBI came up empty. Jackson's attorney Brian Oxman put it simply: "In all these pages, hundreds of pages, many many hours of investigations... there's not one scrap of evidence that Michael Jackson ever did anything wrong, committed any crime."
12. The Prosecution Had No Physical Evidence
Despite presenting approximately 700 exhibits and calling around 90 witnesses over 73 days, the prosecution had zero physical forensic evidence linking Jackson to any crime. No DNA, no medical findings corroborating abuse, nothing. And so, the prosecution based its case solely on testimony. The jury specifically said afterward that they "expected probably better evidence, something that was a little more convincing. And it just wasn't there."
13. The Prosecution Called Jackson's Ex-Wife to the Stand — And She Helped the Defense
In late April 2005, the prosecution called Debbie Rowe — Jackson's former wife and mother of two of his children — to the witness stand. Their strategy was specific. They believed Rowe would corroborate Janet Arvizo's claim that Jackson coerced people around him into making positive statements about him on video.
It did not go that way.
Instead of supporting the prosecution's narrative, Rowe was openly supportive of Jackson. She described his inner circle of business associates — Marc Schaffel, Dieter Wiesner, and Ronald Konitzer — as "opportunistic vultures" who were exploiting him. Her testimony helped the defense, not the prosecution. The situation deteriorated so badly for the prosecution's side that they actually moved to have Rowe dismissed mid-testimony — an almost unheard-of maneuver — claiming she was not providing the testimony they expected. Judge Melville refused and let her testimony stand. In a trial already full of prosecution witnesses who either crumbled under cross-examination or accidentally helped the defense, Debbie Rowe was arguably the most spectacular backfire of all — a witness the prosecution had subpoenaed and prepared, who walked out of the courtroom having done more damage to their case than to Jackson's.
14. Multiple Other Child Guests at Neverland Testified Nothing Improper Ever Happened
Macaulay Culkin, who had slept in Jackson's bedroom between the ages of 10 and 14 on numerous occasions, testified under oath that he never experienced or witnessed any inappropriate behavior. He called the allegations "absolutely ridiculous." Brett Barnes testified that he had stayed at Neverland Ranch and shared Jackson's two-story bedroom on multiple occasions, but insisted that Jackson never touched him inappropriately or did anything improper. Wade Robson, who had slept at Neverland Ranch more than 20 times as a child, testified (in 2005) that Jackson had never touched him. These were not fringe figures; they were people who had been closest to Jackson's world with the kind of access that would have made them potential victims if the prosecution's "pattern of behavior" theory was true.
15. The Prosecution's "Prior Bad Acts" Witnesses Had Financial Incentives to Cooperate
Former Neverland employee Jason Francia testified that Jackson had touched him inappropriately. But Mesereau established that Francia's mother, former housekeeper Blanca Francia, had sold her story to the tabloid show Hard Copy for money, and that both Francias had received compensation for media interviews. Notably, Jason Francia had told detectives in his very first 1993 interview that Jackson had not molested him. He later changed that account. Under cross-examination, Jason left what the jury foreman described as "too many little loopholes in his statements."
16. Former Security Guard Ralph Chacon's Testimony Was Not Impartial
In April 2005, former Neverland security guard Ralph Chacon testified that he had personally witnessed Jackson performing sex acts on Jordan Chandler in the early 1990s — the kind of eyewitness testimony that, if true, would have been explosive. What the prosecution glossed over was that Chacon was among a group of former employees who had previously sued Michael Jackson and lost. The defense argued these witnesses had deep financial and personal grudges against Jackson — making their dramatic, previously-unmentioned eyewitness claims conveniently timed and highly suspect.
17. Two Separate Grand Juries in 1993 Did Not Indict Jackson
When the 1993 Chandler allegations first emerged, DA Tom Sneddon presented evidence to not one but two separate grand juries. Neither returned an indictment. The criminal case was effectively dropped. It was only after Jackson settled the civil suit — something his own insurance company had the contractual right to do without Jackson's consent — that prosecutors and the media began treating the settlement as evidence of guilt. It was not. California law explicitly bars civil settlements from being used as evidence of guilt in criminal proceedings, and two different grand juries had already decided the underlying evidence was insufficient.
18. Tom Sneddon — The Prosecutor — Had Spent Over a Decade Trying to Put Jackson Behind Bars
Santa Barbara District Attorney Tom Sneddon led the prosecution in 2005. He had also led the investigation against Jackson in 1993. When that case fell apart, Jackson publicly mocked Sneddon in a song called "D.S." on his HIStory album. The defense moved to have Sneddon disqualified from the 2005 case, citing personal bias — and while that motion was denied, the concern was legitimate. Defense attorneys painted Sneddon as a man with a "personal vendetta." Sneddon called Chris Tucker, an African-American defense witness, "boy". After the acquittal, Sneddon made the jaw-dropping public statement that any other defendant "would have been convicted in less than two hours" — suggesting the jury was starstruck, rather than acknowledging any weakness in his own case. It's a remarkable thing for a prosecutor to say after a 73-day trial.
19. The Jury Went In Majority Not-Guilty on the Very First Vote
This may be the most understated fact of the entire trial. After 73 days of testimony — after the jury heard everything the prosecution had to offer — the very first informal vote among the 12 jurors was 9 to 3 in favor of acquittal. That means three-quarters of the jury, after absorbing months of witness testimony and 700 exhibits, came in already leaning toward not guilty. The three holdouts were eventually persuaded during deliberations. This was not a close call that went Jackson's way; it was a case in which the jury looked at the prosecution's evidence and found it wanting almost immediately.
20. Michael Jackson's Criminal Case Was One of the Weakest Ever Brought to Trial
The prosecution brought 10 original charges — later expanded to 14 — against the most famous entertainer on the planet, based almost entirely on the word of a family with a documented history of fraud, perjury, and fabricating abuse allegations for financial gain. Their star witness, the accuser's mother, had already admitted to lying under oath in a prior civil case, would later plead no contest to welfare fraud, and invoked the Fifth Amendment to avoid incriminating herself on the stand. Their supporting witnesses included a former employee who had previously lost a lawsuit against Jackson, and a key eyewitness who identified an adult magazine that hadn't existed yet.
The alleged conspiracy charge — kidnapping a family at Neverland — was obliterated by the family's own voluntary comings and goings. The FBI, after more than a decade of active investigation across hundreds of pages of files, found zero evidence of any criminal conduct. California's own child welfare authorities had already cleared Jackson in a preliminary investigation before the indictment. And despite 73 days of trial, roughly 90 prosecution witnesses, and nearly 700 exhibits, not a single piece of physical forensic evidence tied Jackson to any crime. Compare that to virtually any other high-profile conviction and the contrast is stark. When the jury took its very first informal vote after all of that, nine of twelve jurors were already ready to acquit. The three holdouts didn't last long. In the end, the verdict wasn't close. It wasn't controversial inside the room. It was, by any objective measure, a prosecution that never had the goods.
The Takeaway
Andrew Cohen, a legal analyst for CBS, wrote, "You had to see the parade of witnesses, so many of them sleazy or creepy or just downright odd, who paraded in front of jurors for three long months.
You had to see what a punk the alleged victim seemed like on the witness stand and how shaky the core of his testimony was. You had to see how delusional his mother seemed and how much her testimony lacked in credibility. You had to see how futilely prosecutors tried to convince jurors that it is a crime for a famous person, a target, to undertake good public relations or swift damage control. You had to see the evidence that piled up to prove the accusing family had a history of setting up and then hitting celebrities for payoffs.
You had to see how defense attorneys ran rings around prosecutors. You had to count how many times prosecution witnesses testified to facts that helped Jackson. You had to note how often both prosecution and defense witnesses told jurors that they had not been interviewed by law enforcement officials prior to the start of the case.
And you had to notice how intently jurors were watching and listening to lead defense attorney Thomas Mesereau when he delivered his closing argument last week.
...
A jury acquitted Jackson of molestation because the evidence simply wasn't strong enough to support the felony convictions sought by prosecutors. He was acquitted because the witnesses against him were among the worst I have ever seen in a court."
What you have just read — the magazine that didn't exist yet, the mother who invoked the Fifth Amendment at her own side's trial, the three famous comedians who took the stand and described a family running a long con, the child welfare report that cleared Jackson before the ink was dry on the indictment — almost none of it reached the public in real time. While the trial was happening, television networks ran nightly segments built almost entirely around the prosecution's graphic, shocking allegations. Anchors delivered breathless monologues about alcohol and molestation and secret bedrooms. The defense's systematic dismantling of those same allegations — the timeline impossibilities, the magazine date, the lies under oath, Janet's devious history — was either buried in the final two minutes of a segment or skipped entirely. As media critic Charles Thomson later wrote, the coverage was "one of the most shameful episodes in journalistic history." Reporters dashed out of the courtroom to be first on air and missed entire stretches — at one point, even two weeks' worth — of testimony that gutted the prosecution's case. The story that sold was Michael Jackson the predator. The story that happened in that courtroom was something else entirely.
And the consequences of that failure are still with us. Millions of people who never thoroughly sat through a single day of that trial — who never heard Macaulay Culkin call the allegations "absolutely ridiculous" under oath, never learned that Star Arvizo identified a magazine that hadn't been printed yet, never saw Janet Arvizo admit to lying in a previous sexual abuse lawsuit — walked away from 2005 certain of Jackson's guilt. The verdict was treated by much of the press not as a legal outcome supported by the evidence, but as a celebrity getting away with something. In reality, nine of twelve jurors walked into deliberations already leaning toward acquittal. The case wasn't close. It completely collapsed. But that's not the version of history most people carry, because the media that got it wrong in 2005 never went back to correct the record.
And so...
"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it."
Yoav Gallant: I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.
Isaac Herzog: It is an entire nation out there that is responsible. It is not true this rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved. It's absolutely not true.
Amihai Eliyahu: The government is rushing to erase Gaza, and thank God we are erasing this evil. All of Gaza will be Jewish.
Aharon Haliva: For everything that happened on October 7, for every one person on October 7, 50 Palestinians must die. It doesn’t matter now if they are children.
Benjamin Netanyahu: You must remember what Amalek has done to you.
In private calls to local leaders across southern Lebanon, Israeli military officials have assured several Christian and Druse communities that they could remain in the evacuation zone. They have pressed them, however, to force out any Lebanese from neighboring Shiite Muslim communities who have sought refuge among them as Israeli bombardments flatten Shiite towns, according to local Christian, Druse and Shiite leaders who spoke to The New York Times. The Shiites make up the majority of southern Lebanon.
Jordan Chandler Was Never Abused. He Was Used: The 1993 Allegations Against Michael Jackson (Part 1)
In the summer of 1993, before any formal accusations against Michael Jackson were made public, Evan Chandler made a phone call to Dave Schwartz — his ex-wife's husband. What he said on that call reveals that his motive had nothing to do with his son and everything to do with money. Rather than the words of a worried father, the recording reveals something far more calculated, cunning, and strange.
Who Was Evan Chandler?
Evan Chandler was born Evan Robert Charmatz in the Bronx in 1944. He was a Beverly Hills dentist with ambitions that went well beyond his dental practice. He had co-written the screenplay for Robin Hood: Men in Tights and considered himself a serious creative — he desperately wanted to belong in Hollywood circles. He was the father of Jordan Chandler, who made abuse allegations against Michael Jackson in the 1990s.
Actress Carrie Fisher, in her memoir Shockaholic, described Chandler as her dentist and the "dentist to the stars" — someone willing to accommodate shady requests from celebrity patients in exchange for the association. Fisher claimed she would get unnecessary dental procedures just to obtain morphine from him, and that he could be persuaded to send an anesthesiologist to a patient's home to administer drugs. That anesthesiologist was Mark Torbiner — the same man who would later administer the sedative during Jordan's own dental procedure in July 1993, the night his abuse allegation was first made.
Evan & Jordan — Before Michael
Evan and June Chandler divorced when Jordan was young, and Jordan went to live with his mother. The relationship between Evan and his son was distant and strained. Jordan reportedly preferred his mother's home and had limited enthusiasm for visits with his father. Evan was largely on the periphery of his son's daily life — in 1993, he was $68,400 behind on child support payments. This changed when Michael Jackson entered his son's sphere. This is the man who later framed himself as a protective father.
How Michael Entered the Picture
In 1992, June and Jordan met Michael Jackson through a chance encounter at a rental car agency. Jackson gave them his number, and a genuine friendship developed between him and the family as a whole. Jackson and Jordan bonded over shared interests: movies, amusement parks, art, and music. Jordan later traveled with Jackson and visited Neverland.
Evan was initially included in some of this. Jackson reportedly helped him with his screenwriting aspirations and the two had a friendly relationship early on. But as Jackson and Jordan grew closer, Evan reportedly began to feel pushed out.
He leveraged his son's friendship with Jackson to pursue financial assets for himself. He first suggested Jackson build an addition onto his own home for their family. When that fell through, he asked Jackson to buy him a house outright, then proposed a 50/50 partnership in a film production company. Jackson declined both offers, angering Evan.
Evan's Phone Call, July 1993, and Evidence of Extortion
In July 1993, before his son Jordan made any accusations, before any police reports, Evan Chandler called Dave Schwartz — his ex-wife June's husband. A portion of that call can be heard here. What he didn't know was that Dave was recording the call. He taped their conversation because he found Evan's behavior concerning.
In the call, Evan lays out a plan that sounds nothing like a father's concern and more like a calculated con.
Hold onto this as you read what follows: this call took place on July 8, 1993. At this point, Jordan had not made a single allegation against Michael Jackson — not to his father, not to police, not to anyone. Whatever was driving the words below, it wasn't what Jordan had said.
CHANDLER: "I picked the nastiest son of a bitch [Chandler's lawyer] I could find, and all he wants to do is get this out in the public as fast as he can, as big as he can and humiliate as many people as he can..."
A father protecting his child from abuse doesn't go shopping for the most aggressive, publicity-hungry lawyer he can find.
CHANDLER: "Once I make that phone call, this guy is going to destroy everybody in sight in any devious, nasty, cruel way that he can do it. And I've given him full authority to do that."
"Devious" means to be dishonest and cunning. Evan accidentally admitted that he would use untruthful tactics to destroy Jackson. Note his language, too — a father who is protecting their son from abuse doesn't frame their reaction as cruel.
When Schwartz asks why he thinks Jackson is bad:
CHANDLER: "Because he broke up the family, that's why. I mean, that to me was the worst thing anybody could do to me."
CHANDLER: "Because June and Jordy and Michael have forced me to take it to the extreme to get their attention. How pitiful, pitifuckingful they are to have done that."
He's not angry because his child was harmed. He's angry because he felt personally disrespected. Despite how peripheral he was to his own son's life beforehand. Their distant relationship. How behind he was on child support payments. The family gave Jackson more attention than Evan, and that's why he flew into a rage.
CHANDLER: "If I go through with this, I win big time. There's no way that I lose. I've checked that out inside out."
SCHWARTZ: "But when you say 'winning,' what are you talking about, 'winning'?"
CHANDLER: "I will get everything I want, and they will be totally — they will be destroyed forever."
This entire case rests upon Jordan, his son. Evan is doing this for him. He was the child who was supposedly harmed. Why is Evan discussing his personal motives?
Right after Evan says that, Schwartz stops him and asks the only question that should matter:
SCHWARTZ: "Does that help Jordy?"
CHANDLER: "Michael's career will be over."
SCHWARTZ: "And does that help Jordy?"
CHANDLER: "That's irrelevant to me."
You read that right. And Evan's answer told you everything. Not "yes it helps him," not "it's complicated," not even a moment of hesitation. He says "That's irrelevant to me." A father who picks up the phone to destroy a man's life over concern for his child does not say those four words. Ever.
Moreover:
CHANDLER: "Basically, what they have to know, ultimately, is that their lives are over, if they don't sit down."
Lives over if they don't comply. Not "if they've done something wrong" — if they don't sit down and give him what he's asking for.
CHANDLER: "It could be a massacre if I don't get what I want. But I do believe this person [his lawyer] will get what he wants.… He is nasty, he is mean, he is very smart, and he’s hungry for the publicity."
He says "what I want" himself. Not "if justice isn't served" or "if my son isn't protected."
CHANDLER: "There are other people involved that are waiting for my phone call that are intentionally going to be in certain positions — I paid them to do it. They're doing their job. I gotta just go ahead and follow through on the time zone. I mean the time set out. Everything is going according to a certain plan that isn’t just mine."
A plan. With other people. Already in motion. Remember the date: July 8, 1993. Jordan has said nothing to his father about abuse. No psychiatrist has been contacted. No police report exists. The allegation that would destroy Michael Jackson's life has not yet been made.
And yet the plan is already running.
Ask yourself what that plan is. Evan won't say. He has been told by his lawyer not to. But he's already paid people to execute it, already positioned them, and is simply waiting for the outcome of one meeting before deciding whether to trigger it.
A father who believes his child is being harmed calls the police. He does not build a paid, multi-person operation, position people strategically, and hold them in reserve pending a negotiation.
The plan came first. The allegation came second. That sequence is not ambiguous.
CHANDLER: "The evidence is already locked up in a safe place — and it's gonna come out only if I let it come out, and that's it. If they don't talk to me tomorrow, out it comes."
This has all the hallmarks of an extortion attempt. But wait. He says he has evidence inside a "safe place." Maybe a desperate father sometimes acts strangely, and he really does have something.
SCHWARTZ: "I mean, do you think he's [Michael Jackson] fucking him [Jordan]?"
CHANDLER: "I don't know. I have no idea."
This is damning. If Evan genuinely had no idea whether Jackson had abused Jordan, then whatever he had locked up in his safe was not evidence of abuse. It couldn't be. He cannot have genuine evidence of something he simultaneously admits he doesn't know happened. So what is he threatening Jackson with?
He doesn't mention the supposed victim's pain, recovery, safety, or wellbeing. His language is entirely about leverage and outcomes for the speaker. Jordan is functioning as a tool in a negotiation — not as a person being protected.
Evan devised his coordinated plan before he was certain of anything. He decided on a story and then went looking for evidence to support it. He didn't talk about justice. He didn't talk about police. He talked about winning. 'I will get everything I want.' 'I win big time.' That is the only conclusion he was ever working toward.
The Timeline First, Because the Order of Events Says Everything
July 8, 1993 — Evan makes the taped call with Dave Schwartz. This is the call we've discussed, where he says he has no idea if anything happened, yet already made a complete plan, and talks about destroying Michael's career.
July 14-15, 1993 — Evan's lawyer Barry Rothman calls psychiatrist Dr. Mathis Abrams and presents him with a hypothetical situation involving Jordan. Without ever meeting Jordan or his parents, Abrams sends back a letter stating that "reasonable suspicion would exist that sexual abuse may have occurred."
Read that again. A psychiatrist writes a letter suggesting abuse based on a hypothetical. He hasn't spoken to Jordan once.
The calculated plan is rolling into motion. He's just testing if it'll work. Jordan has strongly defended Jackson to this point.
July 16, 1993 — After receiving that letter, Evan Chandler allegedly receives a confession from Jordan.
How the Confession Was Obtained
On July 16, 1993, the day that Jordan confessed, Evan administered a drug to Jordan ostensibly to remove a retained baby tooth. It has been strongly suggested that the drug used was Sodium Amytal, which is known to render the user highly susceptible to false memories and suggestions. Prior to this, Jordan had consistently denied that Michael had behaved inappropriately.
Sodium amytal is not normal to use to pull a tooth (even in 1993). It is a psychological drug with sedative and hypnotic effects. According to science historian Alison Winter, experts believe this type of drug "makes people feel like talking, but it also puts them in a state of extreme suggestibility: people will pick up on cues about what questioners want to hear and repeat that back." Statements made under the influence of sodium amytal are rejected in American courts.
Studies have demonstrated that sodium amytal enabled false memories to be implanted. Dr. Phillip Resnick, a Cleveland psychiatrist, stated: "People will say things under sodium amytal that are blatantly untrue."
July 16, 1993 — Jordan's Confession
This is crucial. This isn't from a pro-Jackson source. According to Evan's brother Ray Chandler in his book All That Glitters, this is how Evan extracted Jordan's "confession".
July 16, 1993 was one day before Evan was legally required to return Jordan to his mother June. He had Jordan for a week. The clock was running out.
Up until that day, Jordan had been defending Jackson — and based on the Chandlers' own retelling through Ray Chandler's book, Jordan was still defending Jackson even on the day in question.
The confession didn't come from a child who was ready to speak. It came from a child being pressured on his last night with his father, who already convinced himself that abuse had occurred.
While inside the dental operatory, Evan's first move was to tell the sedated Jordan that he had his bedroom bugged — saying he already knew everything about the "kissing" and "jerking off" and Jordan should just talk.
Jordan was "silent" and "seemingly unimpressed."
The bluff didn't work. So Evan shifted his approach entirely. He told Jordan that being bisexual was okay — "sorta cool, in a way" — apparently trying to make Jordan feel comfortable enough to admit something.
That didn't work either.
This led Evan back to his aggressive, threatening nature — he says "this is about lying, and you know what's going to happen if you lie." He tells Jordan he was giving him "one more chance to save Michael," and that if Jordan "lied to him," then he was going to "destroy Michael in front of the entire world — and it will be ALL YOUR FAULT."
Perversely, Evan forced Jordan to cave by promising to harm Jackson if he didn't claim he was abused.
This is a father telling a 13-year-old boy that the destruction of a close friend, an idol, would be his fault if he didn't answer the right way. That is the moment the confession came from.
After the threat, Evan repeated the question of whether Jackson had inappropriately touched Jordan, to which Jordan responded with an "almost inaudible yes."
An almost inaudible yes, from a sedated, threatened teenager, one day before he was supposed to go home to his mother. That is what brought down the biggest pop star in the world.
After this, Evan claims he never talked to Jordan about Jackson abusing him again.
A father who already had a coordinated plan and a mission to "kill and destroy" Michael Jackson manufactured a confession from his son through sedation and threats. That is the record. That is the reality of this bizarre case. What happened next is where the financial motive stops being implied and becomes explicit. If you found this post insightful, please reblog it.
What a kind, true soul. It saddens me how the media treated him. But there's always the good side. He is the most successful artist ever, and we will always know his heart.
On the stand in Michael Jackson's 2005 trial, one of Michael's accusers, Star Arvizo, was shown an adult magazine issue. He claimed that the magazine was the exact one Michael Jackson had shown him and his brother.
However, that issue was not published until months after the Arvizo family left Jackson's residence. It is impossible for Star's claims to be true.
Media manipulation to the highest level. Martin Bashir edited his words to engineer a narrative, and MJ was guilty to the press before he was ever charged.
