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Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan
I think the "pedophilia" angle is a really tough one in this case. The actions of the family look more like extortion than the actions of a family seeking justice against someone who abused their child, but that doesn't mean he didn't do it. However, it's worth keeping one thing in mind: until Martin Bashir's hatchet job on Michael and the boy in question, the family had no interest in going to court.
My instinct--based on nothing other than seeing interviews with him--is that he was not a child molester, but a deeply unhealthy, broken individual who believed that he was still a child. In the Bashir documentary he seemed perpetually confused, naive, and like a person who was being victimized by the people around him constantly.
With that said, I wouldn't want my kids "spending the night" with a person who so clearly believes himself to be a child. I think that sort of "Peter Pan" syndrome leads to profoundly unhealthy relationships with children, and do have the risk of being harmful even if they aren't abusive.
I don't know for a fact that he didn't abuse the boy in question. But nor does anyone else "know for a fact" that he did. But Jackson doesn't really fit the profile; pedophiles are adults who victimize children in a predatory way--they get off on power, control, hurting, etc. They are truly evil, scum of the earth people who deserve no sympathy. The thing is, the vibe I got from Jackson was different--it was more like he was in every important sense a child himself, vulnerable and sad as well as neurotic and mentally broken.
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I think the most damning evidence against him is that he paid the other kid 20 million or whatever to drop his lawsuit against him. Couple that with this kid and the 2 others the DA alleged had been abused but wouldn't press charges, and that sounds like enough circumstial evidence to me.
I mean, he may be innocent, and so may OJ and Barry Bonds, but there comes a point when you have to admit you are in denial.
It is what it is, if people want to overlook it and just celebrate his music, so be it. But to claim his innocence of some level of criminal pedophilia is pretty much naive, IMO.