Four adult siblings who spent time with the late Michael Jackson are accusing him of being a “serial child predator” and suing his estate for child sex trafficking, claiming that he abused them when they were minors.
In a complaint filed on Feb. 27, obtained and viewed by Global News, Edward, Dominic, Marie-Nicole and Aldo Cascio alleged that Jackson, who died in 2009 at the age of 50, “drugged, raped, and sexually assaulted” them “beginning when some of them were as young as seven or eight.”
The siblings claim that the alleged abuse took place over the course of “more than a decade” and that it “went on for extended periods, including in locations around the world and when Jackson and his children were guests in Plaintiffs’ family home.”
Jackson “groomed and brainwashed the four siblings, without the knowledge of the others or their parents, throughout their childhood years,” according to the legal documents.
“Jackson used methods typical of child predators, but his wealth and fame, and the apparatus of professional advisors and employees who aided and abetted, and actively concealed, the abuse, gave him far more power over his many victims than other child predators,” the lawsuit says.
The suit says that Jackson “raped and molested” one of the siblings at Elizabeth Taylor’s house in Switzerland and at Elton John’s home in the United Kingdom, as well as at Jackson’s Neverland Ranch in California.
After the alleged abuse began, the siblings say that Jackson “isolated them emotionally, and sometimes physically, from responsible adults and from each other.”
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“He plied them with drugs and alcohol. He showed them pornography, including pictures of unclothed children, to normalize the abuse and desensitize them. He made them fear and distrust others by convincing them that not only his life, but also their lives and the lives of their family members, would be destroyed if anyone found out what he was doing to them,” the suit alleges.
The lawsuit claims “Jackson’s years of brainwashing prevented Plaintiffs from seeking help when he was alive and for years afterward, or even comprehending the despicable behavior they endured.”
The filing alleges that representatives of Jackson’s estate had them sign an agreement, which prevented them from “talking about the years of abuse they endured.”
The family says that in 2019, the Jackson estate offered to send “five annual payments of approximately $690,000,” minus a six per cent commission for a man who presented himself as a representative for the estate, in exchange for signing an “acquisition and consulting agreement.”
The negotiations allegedly happened after the release of the HBO documentary Leaving Neverland, a two-part series that details James Safechuck and Wade Robson’s allegations that the pop star sexually abused them as children.
“After the documentary’s release, Defendants fraudulently induced the Plaintiffs to sign a deceptive and unconscionable document that the Jackson Estate created to attempt to prohibit Plaintiffs from talking about the years of abuse they endured. More recently, Defendants responded to detailed, admissible evidence of Jackson’s crimes against Plaintiffs with defamatory false accusations, threats, and public disclosure of highly private information. Defendants have explicitly threatened to drive Plaintiffs into bankruptcy if they make their claims publicly,” the suit alleges.
The filing further alleges that the “manipulation and psychological and emotional abuse” continued until days before Jackson’s death.
The lawsuit seeks monetary compensation as well as a determination that the signed agreement can be voided.
In a statement to USA Today on Monday, the Jackson estate’s lawyer, Marty Singer, called the lawsuit “a desperate money grab by additional members of the Cascio family who have hopped on the bandwagon with their brother Frank, who is already being sued in arbitration for civil extortion.”
“The family staunchly defended Michael Jackson for more than 25 years, attesting to his innocence of inappropriate conduct. This new court filing is a transparent forum-shopping tactic in their scheme to obtain hundreds of millions of dollars from Michael’s estate and companies,” Singer continued.
Singer mentioned that Frank Cascio’s 2011 book My Friend Michael: An Ordinary Friendship with an Extraordinary Man included “dozens of passages” that “directly contradict what is being alleged now.”
“Throughout, the Cascios consistently and repeatedly asserted that Michael never harmed any of them or anyone else,” Singer said.
He said the Cascio family is seeking a “multi-million-dollar payday” as they “threatened to go public with heinous accusations that completely contradicted their previous statements defending Michael unless his Estate paid staggering sums of money.”
Singer said the family previously “threatened to make accusations” after the release of Leaving Neverland.
He claims that Jackson’s estate “reluctantly paid the Cascios $2.8 million each over five years to protect Michael’s family as well as future projects important to Michael’s legacy and fans, which were worth hundreds of millions of dollars to the Estate for Michaels beneficiaries.”
In 2005, Jackson was found not guilty in a child molestation trial, when the legendary singer was accused of inappropriate sexual conduct with 13-year-old Gavin Arvizo.
Since the trial’s conclusion and Jackson’s death, his reputation never recovered post-trial despite the not-guilty verdict.
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