'The Abrams Report' for March 4
Read the complete transcript to Thursday's showUpdated: 12:11 p.m. ET March 05, 2004Guests: Robert Butterworth, Gloria Allred, Karen Russell, Charles Gasparino, Richard Gabriel, Mike Cox
DAN ABRAMS, HOST: Hi everyone. Tonight, another exclusive on the Michael Jackson case. We‘ll show you documents that could raise questions about the mother of the boy accusing Jackson of molestation.
But first, another Jackson case exclusive. New details about Michael Jackson‘s accuser and his family. It involves a multi million dollar lawsuit the family filed five years ago the department store J.C. Penney. NBC News has obtained over 100 documents never before made public. It involves another legal case with this family and allegations of physical and sexual abuse.
NBC‘s Mike Taibbi broke the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MIKE TAIBBI, NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was a simple case of alleged shoplifting at this J.C. Penney store followed by a brief scuffle in August of 1998, except that it involved the family of the boy who five years later would accuse pop star Michael Jackson of molesting him. In this case, though the shoplifting charges were dropped, the boy, his brother and mother accused security guards of viciously beating them without provocation.
TOM GRIFFIN, ATTORNEY FOR J.C. PENNEY: It became readily apparent that this was an incident and it turned into, in my opinion, a scam to expect money from J.C. Penney.
TAIBBI: Tom Griffin represented Penney‘s, which ultimately paid $137,500 settlement to the family days before the scheduled trial in 2001. The family had sued for three million.
(on camera): If it was a cooked up scam, as you put it, why pay anything?
GRIFFIN: The worst-case scenario is that, you know, a jury is going to believe what she says and they‘re going to tee off on you.
TAIBBI: The public record of the case only briefly describes the stories told by the opposing sides, from Penney‘s, that the boy was sent out of the store by his father with an arm full of shoplifted clothes and that the whole family was quickly detained with the mother starting that brief scuffle.
And from the family‘s side, that the boys were only modeling clothes for Penney‘s, not stealing them, and that they were all then beaten brutally by store security guards for no reason.
(voice-over): But NBC News has obtained more than 100 pages of documents not on the public record, including defense deposition excerpts and psychiatric reports and the documents give a far more detailed version of J.C. Penney‘s case. That the psychiatrist hired by Penney‘s found the mother to be schizophrenic and delusional and severely depressed. Sad over being a nobody, she‘d said, a sad housewife getting fat, even though her own therapist found her to be anxious and depressed after the incident, but not delusional.
Penney‘s says that more than two years after the incident, the mother added on the charge that one security guard had also fondled her breasts and pelvic area for up to seven minutes. And that Penney‘s psychiatrist said she rehearsed her two sons to back up her far-fetched story in what sounded like scripted copies of her testimony that they and she had all suffered broken bones, in addition to her sexual assault. Penney‘s insist there was no evidence to back up any of the allegations.
GRIFFIN: She just came up with this fairy tale, not a fairy tale, it‘s a horror story, and just ran with it.
TAIBBI: Because of the gag order in the Michael Jackson molestation case, none of the principles in that case would comment for the story. Two people who remain close to the family did tell NBC News they still absolutely believe the family‘s story of what happened at Neverland. Some might wonder what a 6-year-old shoplifting case has to do with the molestation charges against Michael Jackson. Griffin, J.C. Penney‘s lawyer, says that based on his experience with the family, he can guess about a possible connection.
GRIFFIN: They‘re going for a homerun this time. This is a shakedown.
Shakedown, part two.
TAIBBI: Mike Taibbi, NBC News, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ABRAMS: All right. How much, if anything, from this lawsuit will show up in the Jackson case? Is it fair to bring it up? What to make of the psychiatric reports?
Let‘s bring in our legal and medical team, victims‘ rights attorney Gloria Allred, who briefly represented the ‘93 accuser and has been actively calling for Jackson‘s children to be removed from his care, defense attorney Karen Russell, and psychologist Dr. Robert Butterworth, who has written psychiatric reports for civil and criminal cases.
All right, Dr. Butterworth, let me start with you. I was most struck by the fact that this allegation that she had rehearsed her sons with regard to this testimony, again, just an allegation, and that she was sad over being a nobody. Both of those, it seems to me, would be very relevant in a case like this.
DR. ROBERT BUTTERWORTH, PSYCHOLOGIST: Well relevancy, psychological credibility. What we‘re talking about, if we‘re talking about someone who has a history not only of exaggeration, but of confabulation and somebody who makes things up, and then we‘re looking at the present case, it doesn‘t take a rocket scientist to come up with the fact that if somebody in the past is suspect and there is a character issue, look at the present.
I mean sadly–I‘m not one of Michael Jackson‘s supporters–and sadly this–if this is the case that‘s going to put the nail in the coffin, I‘m really worried the fact that there are too many holes and regardless of whether this person is schizophrenic or not, there is a history of exaggeration. And this exaggeration could really destroy this case.
ABRAMS: Gloria Allred, does this story disturb you as someone who has been a long-time critic of Michael Jackson‘s?
GLORIA ALLRED, VICTIMS‘ RIGHTS ATTORNEY: Absolutely Dan. It does disturb me. The idea that an attorney for J.C. Penney‘s would come out and take a cheap and seemingly unwarranted attack on a mother of a child who is alleged to be the victim of child molestation, I think it‘s absolutely outrageous...
ABRAMS: Why is it outrageous...
ALLRED: ... I think it also...
ABRAMS: ... that if J.C. Penney‘s position in this case and this lawyer‘s personal belief is that this was a shakedown and this mother invented stories about being fondled after the fact, why is that a cheap shot for him to state his opinion about that case?
ALLRED: This attorney is suggesting that what is occurring now, that is the facts that are going to be alleged by the prosecution in the current pending criminal case, are somehow not true without merit and this is simply a shakedown. Now that‘s wrong for him to say because he has no idea whether Michael Jackson did or did not commit any act...
ABRAMS: Fair enough...
ALLRED: ... of child molestation against this child and by the way, I think this whole case is - the Penney‘s case is irrelevant...
ABRAMS: Well that‘s what...
ALLRED: ... to the current...
ABRAMS: ... that‘s what I was going to ask. Karen Russell, any way a defense attorney can get this in, in the case?
KAREN RUSSELL, TRIAL ATTORNEY: This is absolutely relevant and it absolutely will come in because the defense is going to say this is a pattern. It‘s not just the J.C. Penney case, but it‘s also the custody case. And this woman has a habit of not getting what she wants and coaching her kids into saying what she wants and proceeding legally. So, this is absolutely relevant and it will show a pattern...
ABRAMS: Let me ask...
RUSSELL: ... and bias.
ABRAMS: ... sorry, I apologize. Dr. Butterworth, let me ask you this. OK, let‘s assume even that she‘s a mother who‘s rehearsed her kids, right? It seems to me, hard to believe that you can rehearse a 12 or 13-year-old so much to the point that that child is going to be able to withstand cross-examination on the witness stand.
BUTTERWORTH: There is a possibility, however that the child can be told something over again to the point where they‘re not rehearsing it, that they actually believe it. It‘s quite rare, but a child starts to become in a sense hypnotized by the parent to believe a reality that didn‘t occur and there‘s no question then that they just go over the reality over and over again that the facts have been distorted, very troubling, very disturbing, and you know this may be the death nail on this case.
ALLRED: Oh no, Dan, it‘s quite to the contrary. First of all, let‘s remember that whatever was in the psychiatrist‘s report in the Penney‘s case, you‘re talking about a psychiatrist who was paid by J.C. Penney. Obviously they wouldn‘t have used this report unless they thought it was favorable and so you have to...
(CROSSTALK)
RUSSELL: And the same reports are coming out...
ALLRED: Wait a minute. But this is five years later. Well first of all, that was his opinion. But secondly, whatever that mother‘s mental state was then it could be totally different now. So I think it‘s really irrelevant...
RUSSELL: It‘s a consistent story Gloria. Everyone is saying this about this woman. I feel - I mean I feel compassion...
ALLRED: Everyone? I‘m not...
RUSSELL: ... she needs to seek help.
(CROSSTALK)
RUSSELL: ... the psychiatrist in the custody case (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...
ABRAMS: But Karen, I got to tell you I hate it when I hear lawyers say the reason we settled was just to avoid - I mean look, I say the same thing about Michael Jackson. I think it looks very bad for him that he paid all this money back in 1993. OK...
RUSSELL: He paid...
ABRAMS: ... fine, fine...
RUSSELL: ... precisely because of what‘s going on right now...
ABRAMS: All right, all right, wait, let me finish...
RUSSELL: ... he‘s afraid that this would happen.
ABRAMS: ... let me finish. No, let me finish. Let me finish.
That‘s OK. But I think you‘ve got to have a consistent position on this. Either you‘ve got to think that people who pay off cases are doing it in some cases just to avoid the publicity or the bottom line is when someone pays up then it means that something bad happened and here we‘re seeing J.C. Penney pay $137,000.
RUSSELL: You know what and maybe, maybe the woman was - when they were taking her out of the story, maybe there was some minor assault and maybe they didn‘t want to put their company at risk for three million and thought it was better to settle. That doesn‘t mean that they didn‘t think they could fight the entire case.
ALLRED: Well but Dan...
(CROSSTALK)
ALLRED: Dan, you have a point. You do have a point because look, $130,000 in settlement is not chump change...
ABRAMS: No.
ALLRED: ... and it‘s not nuisance value. If they paid five or $10,000...
ABRAMS: Yes.
ALLRED: ... that would be different. But 130,000 is not nuisance value...
(CROSSTALK)
ALLRED: ... and 20 million or whatever the multi millions that Michael Jackson...
(CROSSTALK)
ABRAMS: Let me play quickly...
ALLRED: ... paid you have to think about.
ABRAMS: ... I want to play this piece of sound. This is from our exclusive of this audiotape. Remember we had this a couple of days on the program. The audiotape of the child services‘ interview with the mother. Right before the actual interview began, Child Services arrives at the mother‘s home to interview the boy. This is in connection with the allegations of Michael Jackson. Let‘s play a little piece of that sound.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DCFS: OK, this is what we‘re going to do. I have to interview. We have to interview each one of you separately. So (UNINTELLIGIBLE) it‘s confidential so the other people are not going to be able to remain.
MOTHER: I also want to know the–all the allegations...
DCFS: I‘m going to do that, we‘re going to go through all of them.
MOTHER: I want to be present when they ask my children questions.
What are my rights? What are their rights?
DCFS: Well you know what, can we–I would like to read you everything...
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ABRAMS: Very quickly, Karen, you know, she - look, she seems on that tape like someone who is just concerned. She‘s not just sort of saying I‘ve got to tell my kids what to say, et cetera. Very quickly.
RUSSELL: Yes, you know the story, the timeline here just really stinks. They‘re alleging that Michael Jackson, the documentary aired, the next day this investigation started, and then the next day is when Michael Jackson started the molestation. It just makes no sense and this woman has zero credibility...
ABRAMS: Well...
RUSSELL: ... over and above the fact that the timeline makes no sense...
ABRAMS: Final five seconds, Bob Butterworth.
BUTTERWORTH: I think that sadly Michael Jackson may walk from this case because of just–the history of this is the best predictor of the future is the past and her past is not clean by any means.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4457864/
VIDEO of this report
Read the complete transcript to Thursday's showUpdated: 12:11 p.m. ET March 05, 2004Guests: Robert Butterworth, Gloria Allred, Karen Russell, Charles Gasparino, Richard Gabriel, Mike Cox
DAN ABRAMS, HOST: Hi everyone. Tonight, another exclusive on the Michael Jackson case. We‘ll show you documents that could raise questions about the mother of the boy accusing Jackson of molestation.
But first, another Jackson case exclusive. New details about Michael Jackson‘s accuser and his family. It involves a multi million dollar lawsuit the family filed five years ago the department store J.C. Penney. NBC News has obtained over 100 documents never before made public. It involves another legal case with this family and allegations of physical and sexual abuse.
NBC‘s Mike Taibbi broke the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MIKE TAIBBI, NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was a simple case of alleged shoplifting at this J.C. Penney store followed by a brief scuffle in August of 1998, except that it involved the family of the boy who five years later would accuse pop star Michael Jackson of molesting him. In this case, though the shoplifting charges were dropped, the boy, his brother and mother accused security guards of viciously beating them without provocation.
TOM GRIFFIN, ATTORNEY FOR J.C. PENNEY: It became readily apparent that this was an incident and it turned into, in my opinion, a scam to expect money from J.C. Penney.
TAIBBI: Tom Griffin represented Penney‘s, which ultimately paid $137,500 settlement to the family days before the scheduled trial in 2001. The family had sued for three million.
(on camera): If it was a cooked up scam, as you put it, why pay anything?
GRIFFIN: The worst-case scenario is that, you know, a jury is going to believe what she says and they‘re going to tee off on you.
TAIBBI: The public record of the case only briefly describes the stories told by the opposing sides, from Penney‘s, that the boy was sent out of the store by his father with an arm full of shoplifted clothes and that the whole family was quickly detained with the mother starting that brief scuffle.
And from the family‘s side, that the boys were only modeling clothes for Penney‘s, not stealing them, and that they were all then beaten brutally by store security guards for no reason.
(voice-over): But NBC News has obtained more than 100 pages of documents not on the public record, including defense deposition excerpts and psychiatric reports and the documents give a far more detailed version of J.C. Penney‘s case. That the psychiatrist hired by Penney‘s found the mother to be schizophrenic and delusional and severely depressed. Sad over being a nobody, she‘d said, a sad housewife getting fat, even though her own therapist found her to be anxious and depressed after the incident, but not delusional.
Penney‘s says that more than two years after the incident, the mother added on the charge that one security guard had also fondled her breasts and pelvic area for up to seven minutes. And that Penney‘s psychiatrist said she rehearsed her two sons to back up her far-fetched story in what sounded like scripted copies of her testimony that they and she had all suffered broken bones, in addition to her sexual assault. Penney‘s insist there was no evidence to back up any of the allegations.
GRIFFIN: She just came up with this fairy tale, not a fairy tale, it‘s a horror story, and just ran with it.
TAIBBI: Because of the gag order in the Michael Jackson molestation case, none of the principles in that case would comment for the story. Two people who remain close to the family did tell NBC News they still absolutely believe the family‘s story of what happened at Neverland. Some might wonder what a 6-year-old shoplifting case has to do with the molestation charges against Michael Jackson. Griffin, J.C. Penney‘s lawyer, says that based on his experience with the family, he can guess about a possible connection.
GRIFFIN: They‘re going for a homerun this time. This is a shakedown.
Shakedown, part two.
TAIBBI: Mike Taibbi, NBC News, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ABRAMS: All right. How much, if anything, from this lawsuit will show up in the Jackson case? Is it fair to bring it up? What to make of the psychiatric reports?
Let‘s bring in our legal and medical team, victims‘ rights attorney Gloria Allred, who briefly represented the ‘93 accuser and has been actively calling for Jackson‘s children to be removed from his care, defense attorney Karen Russell, and psychologist Dr. Robert Butterworth, who has written psychiatric reports for civil and criminal cases.
All right, Dr. Butterworth, let me start with you. I was most struck by the fact that this allegation that she had rehearsed her sons with regard to this testimony, again, just an allegation, and that she was sad over being a nobody. Both of those, it seems to me, would be very relevant in a case like this.
DR. ROBERT BUTTERWORTH, PSYCHOLOGIST: Well relevancy, psychological credibility. What we‘re talking about, if we‘re talking about someone who has a history not only of exaggeration, but of confabulation and somebody who makes things up, and then we‘re looking at the present case, it doesn‘t take a rocket scientist to come up with the fact that if somebody in the past is suspect and there is a character issue, look at the present.
I mean sadly–I‘m not one of Michael Jackson‘s supporters–and sadly this–if this is the case that‘s going to put the nail in the coffin, I‘m really worried the fact that there are too many holes and regardless of whether this person is schizophrenic or not, there is a history of exaggeration. And this exaggeration could really destroy this case.
ABRAMS: Gloria Allred, does this story disturb you as someone who has been a long-time critic of Michael Jackson‘s?
GLORIA ALLRED, VICTIMS‘ RIGHTS ATTORNEY: Absolutely Dan. It does disturb me. The idea that an attorney for J.C. Penney‘s would come out and take a cheap and seemingly unwarranted attack on a mother of a child who is alleged to be the victim of child molestation, I think it‘s absolutely outrageous...
ABRAMS: Why is it outrageous...
ALLRED: ... I think it also...
ABRAMS: ... that if J.C. Penney‘s position in this case and this lawyer‘s personal belief is that this was a shakedown and this mother invented stories about being fondled after the fact, why is that a cheap shot for him to state his opinion about that case?
ALLRED: This attorney is suggesting that what is occurring now, that is the facts that are going to be alleged by the prosecution in the current pending criminal case, are somehow not true without merit and this is simply a shakedown. Now that‘s wrong for him to say because he has no idea whether Michael Jackson did or did not commit any act...
ABRAMS: Fair enough...
ALLRED: ... of child molestation against this child and by the way, I think this whole case is - the Penney‘s case is irrelevant...
ABRAMS: Well that‘s what...
ALLRED: ... to the current...
ABRAMS: ... that‘s what I was going to ask. Karen Russell, any way a defense attorney can get this in, in the case?
KAREN RUSSELL, TRIAL ATTORNEY: This is absolutely relevant and it absolutely will come in because the defense is going to say this is a pattern. It‘s not just the J.C. Penney case, but it‘s also the custody case. And this woman has a habit of not getting what she wants and coaching her kids into saying what she wants and proceeding legally. So, this is absolutely relevant and it will show a pattern...
ABRAMS: Let me ask...
RUSSELL: ... and bias.
ABRAMS: ... sorry, I apologize. Dr. Butterworth, let me ask you this. OK, let‘s assume even that she‘s a mother who‘s rehearsed her kids, right? It seems to me, hard to believe that you can rehearse a 12 or 13-year-old so much to the point that that child is going to be able to withstand cross-examination on the witness stand.
BUTTERWORTH: There is a possibility, however that the child can be told something over again to the point where they‘re not rehearsing it, that they actually believe it. It‘s quite rare, but a child starts to become in a sense hypnotized by the parent to believe a reality that didn‘t occur and there‘s no question then that they just go over the reality over and over again that the facts have been distorted, very troubling, very disturbing, and you know this may be the death nail on this case.
ALLRED: Oh no, Dan, it‘s quite to the contrary. First of all, let‘s remember that whatever was in the psychiatrist‘s report in the Penney‘s case, you‘re talking about a psychiatrist who was paid by J.C. Penney. Obviously they wouldn‘t have used this report unless they thought it was favorable and so you have to...
(CROSSTALK)
RUSSELL: And the same reports are coming out...
ALLRED: Wait a minute. But this is five years later. Well first of all, that was his opinion. But secondly, whatever that mother‘s mental state was then it could be totally different now. So I think it‘s really irrelevant...
RUSSELL: It‘s a consistent story Gloria. Everyone is saying this about this woman. I feel - I mean I feel compassion...
ALLRED: Everyone? I‘m not...
RUSSELL: ... she needs to seek help.
(CROSSTALK)
RUSSELL: ... the psychiatrist in the custody case (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...
ABRAMS: But Karen, I got to tell you I hate it when I hear lawyers say the reason we settled was just to avoid - I mean look, I say the same thing about Michael Jackson. I think it looks very bad for him that he paid all this money back in 1993. OK...
RUSSELL: He paid...
ABRAMS: ... fine, fine...
RUSSELL: ... precisely because of what‘s going on right now...
ABRAMS: All right, all right, wait, let me finish...
RUSSELL: ... he‘s afraid that this would happen.
ABRAMS: ... let me finish. No, let me finish. Let me finish.
That‘s OK. But I think you‘ve got to have a consistent position on this. Either you‘ve got to think that people who pay off cases are doing it in some cases just to avoid the publicity or the bottom line is when someone pays up then it means that something bad happened and here we‘re seeing J.C. Penney pay $137,000.
RUSSELL: You know what and maybe, maybe the woman was - when they were taking her out of the story, maybe there was some minor assault and maybe they didn‘t want to put their company at risk for three million and thought it was better to settle. That doesn‘t mean that they didn‘t think they could fight the entire case.
ALLRED: Well but Dan...
(CROSSTALK)
ALLRED: Dan, you have a point. You do have a point because look, $130,000 in settlement is not chump change...
ABRAMS: No.
ALLRED: ... and it‘s not nuisance value. If they paid five or $10,000...
ABRAMS: Yes.
ALLRED: ... that would be different. But 130,000 is not nuisance value...
(CROSSTALK)
ALLRED: ... and 20 million or whatever the multi millions that Michael Jackson...
(CROSSTALK)
ABRAMS: Let me play quickly...
ALLRED: ... paid you have to think about.
ABRAMS: ... I want to play this piece of sound. This is from our exclusive of this audiotape. Remember we had this a couple of days on the program. The audiotape of the child services‘ interview with the mother. Right before the actual interview began, Child Services arrives at the mother‘s home to interview the boy. This is in connection with the allegations of Michael Jackson. Let‘s play a little piece of that sound.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DCFS: OK, this is what we‘re going to do. I have to interview. We have to interview each one of you separately. So (UNINTELLIGIBLE) it‘s confidential so the other people are not going to be able to remain.
MOTHER: I also want to know the–all the allegations...
DCFS: I‘m going to do that, we‘re going to go through all of them.
MOTHER: I want to be present when they ask my children questions.
What are my rights? What are their rights?
DCFS: Well you know what, can we–I would like to read you everything...
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ABRAMS: Very quickly, Karen, you know, she - look, she seems on that tape like someone who is just concerned. She‘s not just sort of saying I‘ve got to tell my kids what to say, et cetera. Very quickly.
RUSSELL: Yes, you know the story, the timeline here just really stinks. They‘re alleging that Michael Jackson, the documentary aired, the next day this investigation started, and then the next day is when Michael Jackson started the molestation. It just makes no sense and this woman has zero credibility...
ABRAMS: Well...
RUSSELL: ... over and above the fact that the timeline makes no sense...
ABRAMS: Final five seconds, Bob Butterworth.
BUTTERWORTH: I think that sadly Michael Jackson may walk from this case because of just–the history of this is the best predictor of the future is the past and her past is not clean by any means.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4457864/
VIDEO of this report