Fact Checking Diane Dimond’s Lies from TruTV’s “In Session”

Look who she has hanging on her wall! I bet she has a photo of MJ taped to her ceiling above her bed!

On Friday, September 16^th,2011 Tru TV’s legal orientated show “In Session” aired a round table discussion on Michael Jackson’s life, legacy, and upcoming trial. It was hosted by Ryan Smith, and consisted of Steve Manning (one of MJ’s former publicists), Mike Garcia (one of three of MJ’s former bodyguards, who was scheduled to help write a book, but, according to their Facebook page, is no longer associated with that project), Anthony DeCurtis (contributing editor for Rolling Stone), and the notorious Diane Dimond, who replaced author Joe Vogel at the last minute!

The one-hour discussion was divided into different segments and shown throughout the day 8am through 3pm CST. I was fortunate to record all of it on my DVR, and after watching it I was so disgusted by Dimond’s lies that I decided to transcribe the segment on – you guessed it! – the allegations, and refute them right here in a new post!

I also have to admit that I was disappointed –not disgusted, but disappointed – in the performance of Mike Garcia and Steve Manning. Although they made a valiant effort, they came up short in providing a cogent, effective rebuttal to Dimond’s lies. Instead of providing cold, hard facts, they relied on such weak defenses as “Michael was a kid himself!”, “He was such a nice, sweet person!”, “He never harmed his own kids!”, “Evan Chandler killed himself, so that proves he was lying!”, “Jordan Chandler admitted he lied on the internet!”, etc.  Dimond immediately countered all of their claims, and by doing so was able to insinuate that MJ was guilty. And I have to give it to her, she never explicitly said MJ was guilty, or was a p…, but she didn’t make the case for his innocence either! She gave the appearance of being “fair and balanced”, which gives her credibility with less-knowledgeable viewers, who unfortunately are the majority of the viewers!  To use her words, this tactic is her effective “subterfuge”!

With no further ado, here is the transcript of that segment, along with the video of the entire session!

Ryan Smith: What was it like at Neverland Ranch? Was it a place of fantasy? Tell me what it was like at Neverland.

Steve Manning:  I would say it’s a place of pure fantasy. At first I went there was around 10 years ago, when I went there with Jermaine, his wife, and his kids, and I was astonished! I said “My gosh!” It was something to behold, especially as a black man, to see another black man own this type of property, it was unbelievable! I mean, he had a 5,000 square foot French chalet for movies to watch. It was just tremendous! He had these private cottages on the lake. It was something to see; it was a true luxury. It was a 10-star hotel.

Mike Garcia:  I think he was able to actually walk around and just be himself.

Steve Manning:  And he loved inviting fans, and people………speaking of molestation charges, there was a bed that he had inside the movie theater, inside the booth where the projections were, and people said that he used that bed for children, and that was so insulting, so outrageous! It was for kids who were terminally ill! (In a mocking voice) “What’s that bed doing in there?!!” It was a king size bed for kids in their dying days from the Make-A-Wish foundation could come there, lay down, and watch a movie there. But it was something that he was very happy about.

Ryan Smith: There was talk that there were secret rooms inside Neverland Ranch. There was a lot of speculation, especially when the molestation charges came up, that those rooms were dubious, in certain ways.

Mike Garcia: I think that’s the media kinda twisting it.

Diane Dimond: I’ll tell you what, the secret room of Michael Jackson’s, in the bedroom, used to be a fur vault for the woman who lived there before. He made a bedroom out of it, and each step going down there was a little doll on each step.

What was Neverland like? I don’t know, because I was never there. I’ve seen lots of pictures, lots of video of it, and it was opulent and beautiful! Tudor style mansion, gorgeous! I will tell you what they said at the criminal trial: they said it was a child magnet! It was a beautiful place with swimming pools, and slides, and a movie theater…………

Steve Manning:  I disagree!  That’s outrageous!

Diane Dimond: And that’s what they said at the trial!

At this point, Dimond’s face turns red as she angrily turns to Steve Manning, and chastises him for interrupting her!

Diane Dimond: You know what? I don’t interrupt you!

Steve Manning:  Ok, I’m sorry!

Mike Garcia: I’ll say, in security terms, a lot of people do have those rooms because we call them panic rooms.

Ryan Smith: Ok, first Diane, I want you to finish your point about “their saying this at the trial”

Diane Dimond: That’s not ME saying it……

Steve Manning:  Oh ok, alright.

Diane Dimond: I know it’s hard to hear me Steve because I’m talking over this way.

I don’t know what Neverland is like because I never got inside, but I did see a lot of video, at the trial. I did see lots of pictures, and layouts, and diagrams; it’s beautiful! It’s a sanctuary! But, I also remember at the criminal trial the prosecution said “it was a child’s magnet”. It had swimming pools, and movie theaters with all the popcorn and candy you can eat, it had its own amusement park with a petting zoo, and giraffes, and Ferris wheels. If that was Michael Jackson reliving his own childhood, that’s one thing, but that’s not what we heard at the criminal trial.

Ryan Smith: Now Steve, talk to me about that, because the question so many people would ask when they would talk about Neverland is “Why are so many children there?” Why was he around so many children?

Steve Manning:  Because he thought children were innocent, and they were innocent, and childlike. And again, there were adults there. I’ve been there maybe 28 occasions at the ranch, and always had a good time.  There were adults there also. And, he did tell me when the police raided the place that he would never step foot in there again. He was violated, that he was raped.

Mike Garcia: He told us the same thing.  He said he wouldn’t go back because the place was scarred. And from a security standpoint, we felt that it wouldn’t even be a smart move because there’s no telling what’s in the rafters, or inside the walls, after everybody’s in there.

Diane Dimond: Do you mean eavesdropping equipment?

Mike Garcia: Yes.

Diane Dimond: Oh, interesting.

Ryan Smith: Ok, so he felt that way about Neverland after that raid, but was he aware that he was a grown man spending a lot of time with children, and that people would ask questions about it?

Steve Manning:  He didn’t find anything wrong with that because he was innocent, and nothing was happening, that’s what he told me.

Mike Garcia: If you know Mr. Jackson, and he’ll probably agree with me, if you know Mr. Jackson then you’ll know that he shouldn’t have been in that trial. He’s a child himself, and at the same time there’s probably not a whole lot of people telling him saying “Hey, it doesn’t look right”, because there were a lot of “yes” people, but Mr. Jackson was a child himself.

Steve Manning:  I had a conversation with Mr. Jackson; that trial killed Michal Jackson!

Mike Garcia: Absolutely!

Steve Manning:  That’s what really killed him. Even though he was found “not guilty”, he never was the same after that.

Ryan Smith: Why?

Steve Manning:  It drained him. It drained him; it drained his soul and spirit.

Ryan Smith: Let’s talk about the trial, and as Mike just said, you think that trial should have never happened. Diane, what did you think?

Diane Dimond: Well, I’m listening to what the former employees and friends have said about him never wanting to go back to Neverland, because he felt “raped”. I know some members of the prosecution team who said they didn’t want to go back because he had been exposed!

I’m not saying that Michael Jackson was a pedophile! A judge and jury ruled that he was not.

Steve Manning:  Thank you!

Mike Garcia: Absolutely!

Diane Dimond: But in my book, I outline several years’ worth of interviews that I did, with lots of young boys, and their families, that were too afraid to come forward and press charges, that all told the same story! Of how the child was manipulated to come and see Michael Jackson, manipulated to be alone with Michael Jackson, maybe the adults in their lives were over-protective, or over-reacting, but Michael Jackson made the first charges “go away”, as I outline in the book, by paying $30 million dollars! Who does that? And don’t tell me it’s because he had a lot of money back then, because he wasn’t working at that point!

Steve Manning:  Mr. Jackson brought Johnnie Cochran in, and I had a conversation with Johnnie Cochran personally about this, Mr. Jackson brought him in late, before they settled that, and he begged him not to settle it, but he wanted it to just go away. And he regretted it later on.

Diane Dimond: That is just not true! Johnnie Cochran and Howard Weitzman negotiated that monetary settlement with the first young boy.

Steve Manning:  Mr. Jackson asked him not to settle…

Diane Dimond: That’s just not of the facts!

Mike Garcia: A lot of the things your saying is hearsay because I was with him when he went to the lawyers, and things like that……

Diane Dimond: You were there in 1993?

Mike Garcia: No, I was not there.

Diane Dimond: I was there in 1993.

Mike Garcia: But the things that you’re saying is hearsay. I’ve been with him, with lawyers, and I know that he, just like you said……..

Steve Manning:  I’m not going to scrupulate Johnnie Cochran, but Mr. Jackson did bring him in like that, and he begged him not to settle. He wanted it to just go away.

Diane Dimond: Ryan, that is not the facts!

Steve Manning:  That’s what I was told by Johnnie Cochran, and by his mom.

Mike Garcia: Absolutely.

Ryan Smith: Mike, you’re saying that what Diane is saying is hearsay; what did you learn from Michael Jackson?

Mike Garcia: The information that she’s saying is things from secondhand. Like I said, if you knew Mr. Jackson, you would know he didn’t do it.

Diane Dimond: Michael, I sat and talked with young boys, I sat and talked to their families, that’s not secondhand.

Mike Garcia: If you knew Mr. Jackson, you knew he didn’t do it.

Diane Dimond: That’s not secondhand. And you weren’t there in 1993, and I was. When did you first start working for Michael Jackson?

Mike Garcia: So what he had a petting zoo! So what if he had a Ferris wheel! It doesn’t matter!

Diane Dimond: When did you first start working for him?

Mike Garcia: In 2006.

Diane Dimond: Ok, he wasn’t even at Neverland!

Mike Garcia: If you knew Mr. Jackson, then you knew that he didn’t do it. That’s all I have to say.

Diane Dimond: You were not even around when he lived at Neverland.

Anthony DeCurtis: To tell you something about kids and families like that, they’re not bringing suits, they’re not doing anything? What is motivating them like that?

Mike Garcia: Who’s not to say that their parents didn’t push them on? They’re a lot of things that could have happened.

Diane Dimond: That’s right.

Mike Garcia: You’re sitting there and pointing things out, but at the same time, I’m not…………to be honest, I get asked that question a lot, when people find out that I was with Mr. Jackson, they ask “do you think he did it?” Absolutely not! He was a very gentle man!

Steve Manning:  Diane, isn’t it true Diane that the Ryan father who pushed this whole thing, later admitted that his father made him do it?

Diane Dimond: No, that is not true! That was put out on the internet that the first young man recanted, and it absolutely was not true. That came out after his father committed suicide, and people said “Oh look, his father committed suicide! Chandler’s gone, it was all a hoax!” Mr. Chandler committed suicide because he had a degenerative disease that was robbing him of the ability to stand up, to speak, to swallow, or to think.

Steve Manning:  Well, I wish you would have went to Neverland, and you’re family. It was something for families; it was a beautiful place……

Diane Dimond: I’m sure it was a beautiful place, but Mike, with all due respect, you started working for him in 2006, he didn’t even live at Neverland! You don’t know what went on at Neverland, and I don’t either! I just know the people I spoke to, not secondhand.

Mike Garcia: When you’re embedded with someone 24 hours a day……like I said, there was no entourage, it was just us, Michael Jackson, and the kids, and when you’re embedded with someone like that, you pick up on things. I have a great attention to detail. I watched how everybody does everything. There’s no way that he did it. There’s absolutely no way. And him being a child himself………..you want to talk about his house at Neverland, he had this, and he had that, he probably had it for himself first.

Steve Manning:  But the bottom line is, like I said earlier, the trial killed him, it drained him. He was dead already!

Mike Garcia: Drained him!

Mike Garcia: A lot of things, like how people turned their backs on him……I heard that there was a party after the trial, and a thousand people were supposed to be there, and only 200 people showed up!  He saw a lot of things! He saw a lot of people’s true colors.  Honestly, we didn’t get paid for several months, but we stayed with the guy because we saw his naiveness, and the way he was treated by the media and everybody else, and the control. The guy was a heart of gold.

Ryan Smith: Let me ask this, of both of you. You both spent a lot of time with Michael; did Michael ever spend time alone with boys? The rumors that he spent time in bed with boys?

Mike Garcia: I never saw anything myself.

Ryan Smith: You never saw anything?

Mike Garcia: The only children I saw him with were his own, and he was a great father.

Diane Dimond: And you do know Ryan, if indeed the charges were true…………nope, let me say it this way………you do know Ryan that a child molester does not molest in front of other people!  They’re very secretive, they’re very crafty. Anybody at the FBI, who wrote the profile of what a pedophile is, will tell you that they’re the most charming, fascinating, engaging people in all of criminal life! They first must seduce the parent to get to the child. I’m not saying Michael Jackson was a pedophile, but to say “Oh golly, he’s such a nice guy, and he’s so sweet, and he’s like a child himself”, that could also be a crafty subterfuge. I look at both sides to everything, and I know that angers some people!

Steve Manning:  But the Santa Barbara jury found him not guilty.

Diane Dimond:  Absolutely!

Ryan Smith: And that’s a good point Steve! And why was he found not guilty?

Diane Dimond: Because I think the state did not prove its case! I sat in that court every single day, and the case that was filed became so complicated with conspiracies, and phone numbers, and phone trees, and this, and that, they forgot to just tell the story, and let the jury decide on that.

Steve Manning:  But look at those charges, I mean, an all-white jury, a black guy……..

Diane Dimond: It wasn’t in Santa Barbara, first of all, it was in Santa Maria, which is 120 miles north from Santa Barbara.

Ryan Smith: I’ll ask this one other question, and Steve and Mike, let me get your thoughts on this: as Diane’s saying, it’s been documented that he paid families of children that accused him molestation, so the question is……..

Steve Manning:  She said they didn’t come forward, just one family, the guy Ryan…..

Ryan Smith: Ok, so let’s assume it’s one family then, assuming that, I think the question that would occur to a lot of people guys, is “Why would you pay somebody off for something that you didn’t do?”

Steve Manning:  Well he regretted that he settled that case, he regretted it. He should have let it go to trial. In the second trial he was vindicated, and he wished he could have done that with the Ryan case.

Diane Dimond: And I think that’s a very good point because, if he had not settled the first case, and it had gone to trial, there never would have been a second one.  He made himself a target by paying $30 million dollars to a boy’s family. Every ne’er do well in America could have come forward and said “Hey look! He pays people! Let’s go file a false claim!” There weren’t any for 10 years, and in 2003, a young boy, suffering from cancer, alleges that Michael Jackson did untoward things to him. The jury declared him “not guilty”, and I say that’s the way we need to remember Michael Jackson.

Steve Manning:  Thank you!

Diane Dimond: He was a genius, a talented genius, and a tortured soul.

Analysis:

1. “Speaking of molestation charges, there was a bed that he had inside the movie theater, inside the booth where the projections were, and people said that he used that bed for children, and that was so insulting, so outrageous!” This topic was brought up by the one and only Oprah in her 1993 interview with the Agajanian family, which aired on the same day as her live, primetime interview with Michael. She describes how impressed she was that he would build a bed inside of his movie theater so that terminally ill children could watch movies in comfort, and how she was so moved by that, because in order to do that means that MJ genuinely cared about them! (And those are her exact words, too!) Her comments start at 3:50.

2. “There was talk that there were secret rooms inside Neverland Ranch.” In an interview that was granted on July 1^st, 2009, Mr. AC Agajanian, the father of Amy, debunked this “secret room” garbage that both the tabloid and “lamestream” media reported on for years, even after his acquittal!  Here is his interview, and he refutes the lie beginning at 5:45.

Here is a partial transcript (the complete transcript  is included in this post):

JC: But let me tell you something that came up about his bedroom, and the “secret room” and all this stuff that went on. Francie and I were in his bedroom, my kids were in his bedroom, his bedroom was a playland, it had Disney things in there, it was like a living room. And when he said, “I invited kids in my bed” [sorry, JC, Michael never said it – he simply said he gave his bed to others] it’s… first of all, any kids that wanted to have a slumber party there, the “secret room” that they referred to that was locked up and so on, that was where he went to sleep.

When he said, “I’d be happy to give my bed to kids”… what he meant by that was, when he grew up, he didn’t have a bed. All the Jackson kids slept in one room. To be able to sleep in the bed was a big deal!  And the people just didn’t understand that what he was saying was, when you give someone where you sleep and you leave and you go to another room to sleep, you’re giving them the bed, you’re sharing the most you have.

It’s like sitting at the table and going, “Yeah, you could have this steak and go eat, I’ll eat the beans over here.” They just didn’t understand and his honesty in saying that got him in trouble.

Here is a video of The Today Show from June 2010. They did a special on the one year anniversary, it included a tour of Neverland, and of course the stupid reporter had to show everyone the “secret room” and remind everyone that the prosecutors said he used it for nefarious reasons! It starts at 00:30 seconds:

http://www.mefeedia.com/video/31716321

3. “What was Neverland like? I don’t know, because I was never there.” Bull! She was the ONLY reporter that was on the property during Sneddon’s  November , 2003 raid!  As a matter of fact, she was there BEFORE the police arrived! This was summarized in this MJEOL Bullet.  Here is an excerpt:

Not only was she apparently tipped off by someone in either the district attorney’s office or the sheriff’s department, but she was given so much specific information that she executed a plan to have two camera crews ready: one to catch the raid at Neverland, and another for when Jackson was to be arrested and taken to the police station. What? No one has so much as asked one question about how she knew to be there at that time, who gave her this information, and for what purpose was it given to her. The second crew at the police station came up empty because Jackson wasn’t at Neverland when the raid started. This in itself of further evidence that Sneddon was allowed to get the search and arrest warrants at the same time, since Dimond “broke” news that police “sources” said that had Jackson been at Neverland during the time they ransacked his home, they would have arrested him “on the spot”.

Apparently for months, she was given or was seeking information about this investigation, and was tipped off hours before the raid so that she could be there, ready to roll camera and report her ill-gotten “scoop”. She has also, since, proclaimed to have met the accuser and presumably the mother. The questions that arise, of course, are when and how did she get in contact with them. We know from an earlier report that current district attorney Sneddon was trying to get in contact with the family as early as Feb 16 2003. So when did Dimond track down the family? Since she was so…uh, resourceful…could she have aided prosecutors in finding them? She has, since, aided prosecutors in tracking down a pair of dirty old underwear which may or may not even belong to Jackson.  But the point is that she has gone to the other side of the country, found what she thought was “evidence” in the so-called case against Jackson, and called up her old buddy Sneddon—who sent officers there to pick up those dirty old drawers.

Here is an excerpt from the Daily Mail UK, and I apologize for having to use this garbage, due to the headline:

Police search Jacko’ s ranch

Police have searched Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch in California – although the purpose of the search was not immediately disclosed, a sheriff’s official said.

The authorities executed a search warrant at the 45-year-old musician’s sprawling home in the Santa Ynez Valley outside of Santa Barbara, said a sheriff’s spokesman.

The Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s office was also involved in the action, he added.

A Jackson spokesman told CNN the singer was not at the ranch and the raid “came as a total surprise.”

CourtTV’s Diane Dimond, reporting from Neverland, said the raid was in connection with an abuse charge from a 13-year-old boy.

The search is unrelated to a 13-year-old boy’s 1993 allegation that Jackson shared his bed with the teenager and initiated sexual contact.

Jackson’s friend Uri Geller said: “I have heard an ambulance was involved. I don’t know what is going on”.

The search warrant related to a criminal investigation, a police spokesman said.

Nine years ago a 14-year-old reached an out-of-court agreement after accusing the singer of molesting him.

The search comes on the same day Epic Records released Number Ones, a greatest hits collection featuring Jackson’s new single, One More Chance. US TV is scheduled to air a Jackson special next week consisting mainly of old concert footage.

And if there are still any doubts as to whether or not Dimond was tipped off several months early about the investigation and upcoming raid, then let’s look what she had to say about it in her book “Be Careful Who You Love”,

Dimond and her buddy Louise Palanker just gushing over her new book!

from page 4:

Several years went by. My life went on. Flash-forward to my birthday, November 15^th, 2003. I got “the” call. I had been alerted a few months earlier that a new Jackson child molestation investigation was percolating and on that day I learned that another raid on Neverland was a go. There was also a secret arrest warrant pending, and if Michael Jackson was anywhere on his 2,700 acre ranch, he would be arrested on child molestation charges immediately.

There! She admits it herself that she was tipped when the investigation started, and obviously that Sneddon was able to get an arrest warrant to arrest MJ on the spot, something he obviously wanted to do but could not do in 1993, due to Jordan’s inaccurate description of MJ’s penis!

4. “But in my book, I outline several years’ worth of interviews that I did, with lots of young boys, and their families, that were too afraid to come forward and press charges, that all told the same story!”  This statement is totally and absolutely representative of Dimond’s M.O.: she tells a gullible, impressionable public audience that she, in her capacity as an “investigative journalist”, has interviewed “lots” of young boys who told the “same story”, but were “too afraid” to press charges! And to give her lies more credibility, she insists that she also interviewed their families as well! This is what’s known as an “ad hominem” technique, which means that she’s “appealing to the viewer’s emotions and prejudices, instead of their ability to think”!  By claiming that there are other “victims” out there, and of course by not revealing their identities, or an exact date of her “interviews” with them, she scares the less-knowledgeable viewer into thinking that MJ is a reincarnation of John Wayne Gacy!

Here is what Dimond wrote on her blog on July 6^th, 2009:

But Michael Jackson was obsessive about other things too; things that don’t make us feel so good. He was accused of one of the most insidious crimes imaginable – the sexual abuse of a child – not just once but twice. And from my years of reporting on the case I can tell you there were other young boys with eerily similar stories of abuse by Jackson, sons of parents too reticent, too embarrassed or scared to press charges.

Maureen Orth also peddles in this type of yellow journalism. Here is what she said on June 26^th, 2009:

In August 1993, I was on the beach in Nantucket when I was told that Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter was trying to reach me: Michael Jackson had just been accused of child molestation by a 13-year-old boy. Thus began an odyssey of 12 years in which I wrote five lengthy articles for the magazine about the trials and tribulations of this music icon whose fame had literally deformed him. I spoke to hundreds of people who knew Jackson and, in the course of my reporting, found families who had given their sons up to him and paid dearly for it.

These are what I call “phantom victims”, and it was my idea to do a post on all of the frivolous accusers who smeared MJ’s reputation, in addition to the specious accusers. The word “specious” means “to appear to be superficially plausible, but in reality false”. Jordan Chandler, Gavin Arvizo, and Jason Francia’s claims are considered specious because they knew MJ personally, and spent time with him (which gives their accusations a hint of credibility), unlike the phantom victims who never met him at all! (Except for Terry George, but his claim came years after MJ severed ties with him.)

The phantom victims that we rebutted include Terry George, Daniel Kapon, Joseph Bartucci, and a German kid whose mother, according to Dimond and Ray Chandler, allegedly called Evan Chandler from Germany, but never contacted the police!  We dismantled all of them in this post.

5. “Michael Jackson made the first charges “go away”, as I outline in the book, by paying $30 million dollars! Who does that?”  Once again, another ad hominem attack! This is the usual “no innocent man would pay money to settle a false claim!” nonsense, and for added sensationalism, she doubled the $15,331,250 settlement to $30 million dollars!

I have rebutted this nonsense ad nauseum on this blog before, so there’s no reason to once again do it here. As usual, for the truth behind MJ’s settlements, please read this 2 part series, beginning here.

One of the reasons that Dimond is able to spin the settlement as a sign of guilt, and make up astronomical dollar amounts for the settlement, is that she deliberately excluded from the leaked documents the all-important Paragraph 3, which is referred to numerous times throughout the settlement. This paragraph, in all likelihood, mentions the insurance carrier who negotiated and paid the settlement, among many other pertinent facts.  This was discussed in this post last year.

And did you notice how she lied and said that he “wasn’t working” at that point? How can that be, when he was on tour throughout the fall of 1993, until he checked into rehab!  And while he obviously wasn’t touring in January 1994 when the civil case was settled, he still was worth hundreds of millions of dollars! What Dimond did was, once again, rebut the weak defense that fans often use that the settlement money was “pocket change” to MJ.

6. “No, that is not true! That was put out on the internet that the first young man recanted, and it absolutely was not true.” I was absolutely speechless when Steve Manning mentioned Jordan’s so-called “confession”. And not only did he try to use it as “proof” of MJ’s innocence, he even asked Diane if it was really true! As if he wasn’t sure about it!!  How (for lack of a better word) MISINFORMED can this man be? He doesn’t even know Jordan’s name! (He referred to him repeatedly as “Ryan”.) And it’s not just him; I’ve seen both Jermaine and Katherine Jackson say this as well!  In fact, here is a video of Katherine Jackson on the Today Show in May:

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/42894699#.TnZwIGjlYao

Here is a partial transcript:

Matt Lauer:  You said in an interview not long ago with the associated press that there are a lot of lies about your son out there and misconceptions. If you could set some of them straight now what would you like to tell people?

Katherine Jackson: Well, the first thing i would like to tell them is as far as Michael being a child molester, that’s the biggest lie that was ever told. I guess nobody seemed to know that his first accuser, after Michael died there was an article that he came and confessed that Michael never touched him. It was a big lie and his father just wanted to be rich. He said, “I’m sorry i didn’t get to tell him before he died”.

Matt Lauer: Yet, Mrs. Jackson, there was a settlement made, a payment made by your son to the accuser. If there was no guilt why was the payment made?

Katherine Jackson:  Well, his lawyers told him that he should just pay the money because Michael was out on tour at that time. They thought that just paying the money and shut the people up would be the right thing to do. but Michael was upset and i was, too. As soon as I heard it I called him and said, why did you do that? It makes you look guilty. He said, “the lawyers told me to do it. I didn’t want to do it either, mother. I wanted to fight it because it wasn’t the truth.”

Just for the record, Jordan Chandler never publically recanted ANYTHING! While it’s been said that he told his closest friends in college that he lied, until he publically announces it, and writes a book, and does a major TV interview with Oprah, Larry King, Diane Sawyer, etc., anything he says in private to his closest friends is IRRELEVANT!

Also, Evan Chandler’s death does NOT automatically prove that he lied, either! While it’s certainly karma that his life ended the way it did, after how he destroyed MJ’s life, Dimond made a good rebuttal (which is what any MJ hater will do to such a weak defense of him): his death was due to his illness, and not necessarily because he felt “guilty” about what he did. Perhaps there was some guilt, but unfortunately we as fans will never know, and we cannot independently confirm it, so we should never use this as “evidence”; instead, we can rely on the timeline of the chain of events of 1993, such as his desire to be a 50/50 partner with MJ, the dissolution of his relationship with MJ after his request was denied, his demand of a $20 million dollar film deal in exchange for his silence, and numerous other examples of exculpatory evidence.

7. “Well, I wish you would have went to Neverland, and you’re family. It was something for families; it was a beautiful place.” Oh my gosh, when I responded to Dimond with this crap, my jaw just dropped! You’re telling me that you’re on a panel with the most notorious MJ hater who ever lived, and you’re gonna defend your friend and former client Michael Jackson by saying that Dimond should have visited Neverland to see how beautiful it is? If you were someone who is on the fence about MJ’s guilt, what would you think upon hearing this? This was a theme that was consistent throughout this panel, from both Manning and Garcia. Instead of providing facts, they kept mentioning how nice, sweet, naïve, and childlike MJ was, how Neverland was a beautiful place, how he regretted settling the 1993 case, blah,blah, blah, and they really missed a golden opportunity to educate the public! I guess this is why they were selected in the first place! Let’s not forget, Tru TV is merely a spinoff of the now defunct Court TV, which employed the likes of Dimond, Grace, Sunny Hostin, Kimberly Guilfoyle, and Gloria Allred.

To get an objective opinion of Court TV’s degradation over the years, let’s look at what former Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley had to say about the network at the November 2005 Harvard Law School Seminar:

 “I was totally hooked on Court TV.  That was Court TV in the “good old days”, before all the talking heads came in, and you got mostly uncensored, real trial testimony, and it was fascinating to watch.”

8. I’m not saying Michael Jackson was a pedophile, but to say “Oh golly, he’s such a nice guy, and he’s so sweet, and he’s like a child himself”, that could also be a crafty subterfuge. This is EXACTLY why all MJ fans must step their game up, and improve their knowledge of the facts; otherwise, you will merely resort to using ad hominem techniques that will be rightfully obliterated by haters, and even skeptics. I truly hope that this blog is a stepping stone to the accomplishment of that goal!

For example, let’s look at Rev. Al Sharpton try to defend MJ against Peter King’s attacks. His heart was in the right place, but overall it was a very weak defense that (once again) didn’t include any pertinent facts.  It was just more of the same “the jury acquitted him, leave him alone, blah, blah, blah…”.  Extremely weak, ineffective, and unconvincing.

9. “The case that was filed became so complicated with conspiracies, and phone numbers, and phone trees, and this, and that, they forgot to just tell the story, and let the jury decide on that.” Once again, Dimond goes into spin mode, and I’m surprised her head didn’t start spinning around like that kid in “The Exorcist”! (When I say “spin”, I mean that she’s “presenting information to the public in a way that is meant to falsely influence their opinion”.)

This is absolutely typical of what haters do; they blame the prosecution for “bungling” the case, or they blame the accusers for being of a lower educational and socioeconomic status, or they blame the jury for being “smitten” by MJ’s celebrity.  Matt Drudge warned that this would happen during his vehement defense of MJ on his radio show in 2005.

Let’s take a closer look at this so-called “complicated” phone number evidence that was soooooooo confusing that the jury decided to acquit MJ on this alone! Here is the May 2^nd, 2005 testimony of Detective Craig Bonner, who was assigned the task of investigating the phone records in the days and weeks after the airing of the Bashir crock-u-mentary, which were subpoenaed by Sneddon. He used Microsoft Excel to create phone charts which showed how each phone call was connected to one another, similar to the flowchart that was used in the Veritas Project to show how all of the accusers were connected to each other!

Here are some very brief excerpts from his direct and cross examination. This is truly the most BORING testimony that I’ve ever read! To think that the prosecution spent ALL DAY on such trivial and irrelevant evidence just boggles the mind, and it’s easy to see why haters use this is an easy scapegoat for MJ’s acquittal. If Dr. Murray had forced MJ to read this testimony, instead of administering propofol, MJ would surely have gotten the sleep he so desperately desired!

Let’s start with a basic introduction of who Det. Bonner is, and how he accomplished his assignment of making the phone database:

 23 DIRECT EXAMINATION

24 BY MR. NICOLA:

25 Q. Good morning, Sergeant Bonner.

26 A. Good morning.

27 Q. With respect to your investigation in this

28 case, did you have occasion to gather, sort and 8322

1 analyze telephone records and subscriber

2 information?

3 A. Yes, I did.

4 Q. Do you see the stack of phone exhibits

5 sitting on counsel table? I believe they’re 450

6 through 459.

7 A. Yes, I’m quite familiar with them.

8 Q. Do you recognize those exhibits?

9 A. I’m quite familiar, yes.

10 Q. And did you play a role in putting those

11 exhibits together and analyzing the information that

12 was contained within them?

13 A. I did.

14 Q. Can you briefly and generally explain to the

15 jury the process that was used to — the initial

16 step used in getting a handle on the information

17 that’s in those exhibits?

18 A. Yes. Basically we obtained quite a number

19 of telephone records through search warrant and

20 subpoena. We amassed those records and brought them

21 into a computer database, used that computer

22 database to compile and sort those records into a

23 format where we could begin to see patterns of calls

24 and who was calling whom.

25 We then utilized that information to cut out

26 the unnecessary material, or the material which we

27 could not substantiate through other evidence, and

28 we have brought that together now into exhibits that 8323

1 will show just those phone calls that are pertinent,

2 and we have done that in a visual manner as well as

3 in a document that will back up that visual manner.

4 Q. Okay. I think we missed a step. With

5 respect to the information that was generated and

6 you created a spreadsheet from it, can you explain

7 to the jury how you verified the information that

8 was in your spreadsheets?

9 A. The computer database basically put together

10 a list of the calls that it said occurred between

11 our involved parties to ensure that that list was

12 correct. We then went into those records, which are

13 the actual records sent by the phone companies, and

14 we verified each and every call that the computer

15 said occurred, and we have noted where that call

16 occurs within those records.

17 Q. Okay. Did you prepare some exhibits for

18 court today to demonstrate your testimony?

19 A. I did.

18 Q. BY MR. NICOLA: I ask if you recognize

19 Exhibit 859?

20 A. Yes, I do.

21 Q. What does 859 contain?

22 A. 859 is the visual chart documenting

23 telephone calls between the involved parties on

24 February 5th, 2003.

25 Q. Is there also a document behind the visual

26 chart?

27 A. There is. It’s an Excel spreadsheet, which

28 is the verification of each call that is claimed on 8325

1 the visual chart.

2 Q. And did you create or cause to be created

3 these charts?

4 A. I did.

5 Q. And did you cause to be created 859 through

6 882?

7 A. I did.

8 Q. Okay. Now, with respect to testifying about

9 the contents of these exhibits, 859 through 882, did

10 you delegate some other of your colleagues to assist

11 you?

12 A. I did.

13 Q. And which exhibits will you be testifying to

14 today, if you could please the tell jury now?

15 A. I will testify to 859, 860, 861, 862, 863,

16 864, 865, 866, 867, 871, 875, 876, 877, 878 and 879.

Now, let’s get to the heart of the matter: there was a material error in the description of one of the charts that was used to outline 12 phone calls between Eveyln Tavasci and Neverland Valley Ranch. Det. Bonner pointed out to that there was an error in the description of who was called (which was Neverland Valley Ranch, not Marc Schaffel, which was stated on the chart). The original chart implied that there was phone contact between Tavasci and Scheffel, when there wasn’t any!

Upon realizing this error, Prosecutor Nicola asked to have the chart evidence(exhibit 879) stricken, pending correction (which would have forced the jury to disregard it), but defense attorney Robert Sanger objected, because it had already been referred to in front of the jury, and that is should remain until it was corrected. The court agreed!

1 Q. Can you tell us about the 12 phone calls

2 between the Evvy Tavasci/MJJ Production phone and

3 the Schaffel phone, please? Do you know when the

4 first one occurred?

5 A. No. There appears to be an error.

6 Q. That should say “Neverland Valley Ranch”?

7 A. It should.

8 Q. Okay. Can you tell us what time the first

9 call to Neverland Valley Ranch occurred?

10 MR. SANGER: I’m just going to object for

11 the moment, that there is a reference to, “That

12 should be Neverland Valley Ranch,” and it’s not

13 clear what that reference is to.

14 THE COURT: Sustained.

15 Q. BY MR. NICOLA: The 12 phone calls I was

16 referring to should have been referred to as the

17 Neverland Valley Ranch, correct?

18 A. That’s correct.

19 Q. So the link between the Tavasci/MJJ

20 Productions phone and the Marc Schaffel phone is

21 incorrect; is that what you’re saying?

22 A. That’s correct.

23 Q. Okay. Were there any calls between the

24 Schaffel phone and the Tavasci phone for that day?

25 A. No.

26 Q. Okay. So the 12 calls between the

27 Tavasci/MJJ Production phone and the Neverland

28 Valley Ranch phone began at what time that day? 8391

1 A. 8:48 a.m.

2 Q. And what time did they cease?

3 A. At 8:19 p.m.

4 Q. Is the chart — excuse me, is the

5 spreadsheet behind the chart accurate, to your

6 recollection?

7 A. Yes, it is.

8 Q. Okay. And is that how you realized the

9 actual chart that’s up on the screen is incorrect

10 with respect to the link between the Evvy Tavasci

11 phone and the Marc Schaffel phone?

12 A. That’s correct.

13 Q. The call between the Amen phone and the

14 Schaffel phone, what time did that occur, please?

15 A. At 1757 hours.

16 Q. And that was a one-minute call?

17 A. One-minute duration.

18 MR. NICOLA: Your Honor, I’ll move to strike

19 this chart, Exhibit 879.

20 It is 879, correct?

21 THE WITNESS: Correct.

22 MR. NICOLA: Pending correction.

23 MR. SANGER: Well, I object to that. It’s

24 been referred to in front of the jury, so it should

25 remain. And they can present a corrected chart if

26 they want.

27 MR. NICOLA: We can do that.

28 THE COURT: I think that’s the way to do it. 8392

Here is Sanger’s cross examination of Bonner. Let’s look at the VERY FIRST QUESTION!!!

22 CROSS-EXAMINATION

23 BY MR. SANGER:

24 Q. Okay. Some big-picture questions. First of

25 all — I don’t really want to go through the exact

26 times of minutes of everything, but there are some

27 big-picture questions.

28 First of all, in all these phone records 8393

1 that you analyzed, were you able to determine from

2 the phone records whether or not Michael Jackson was

3 ever on a single call?

4 A. No.

As you can see, Sanger cut straight to the chase! He wanted to erode the prosecution’s claim that MJ was the mastermind behind the alleged conspiracy by having Bonner admit that MJ was not on a single call!

Here is where Sanger asked Bonner to describe how MJ’s staff arranges for his travels, and that there was no effort to hide MJ’s identity in his internal travel records:

21 Q. Okay? And before we talk about that

22 particularly, let me ask you some general questions

23 that will cover other entries as well.

24 In general, through your investigation in

25 this case, did you determine that when Mr. Jackson

26 travels, the people that arrange his travel often

27 will take a name that is not Mr. Jackson’s name and

28 use that for the purpose of booking hotels? 8408

1 A. That’s correct.

2 Q. And is that something common with

3 celebrities, to book rooms under other names,

4 whether it’s a staff person or just a fictitious

5 name?

6 A. I don’t have personal knowledge. This is

7 the only instance that I’ve personally been involved

8 in.

9 Q. All right. Have you ever seen other

10 celebrities book rooms?

11 A. No.

12 Q. Okay. All right. Anyway, it makes sense to

13 you. You don’t want to put your own name down there

14 if you’re going to attract a lot of attention,

15 right?

16 A. Correct.

17 Q. And sometimes in your investigation, just to

18 cover the big picture, you will see in the documents

19 that the name that is used appears to have — the

20 last name that’s used appears to have no relation to

21 anybody we know of, right?

22 A. Correct.

23 Q. So it just might be a name like Mason or

24 something like that; is that correct?

25 A. Could be, yes.

26 Q. On the other hand, sometimes you’ll see

27 rooms are booked in the name of somebody who is

28 actually working for MJJ Productions or in some 8409

1 other way associated with that organization, such as

2 Chris Carter?

3 A. Correct.

4 Q. So Chris Carter might reserve rooms in his

5 name, right?

6 A. Correct.

7 Q. You never saw rooms reserved in the name of

8 Michael Jackson himself, correct?

9 A. No.

10 Q. All right. And the records are kept openly

11 in that regard, correct? In other words, through

12 the records that you found both at Neverland and

13 from the various places where records were

14 subpoenaed or obtained by search warrants,

15 internally there was no effort to hide the fact that

16 these were Mr. Jackson’s rooms, right?

17 A. No.

Here is Sanger asking Bonner about his recollection of Janet Arvizo asking for a ride from Neverland in a Rolls-Royce on the morning of February 12^th, 2003 (when she would later claim to be held “hostage”):

27 Q. Okay. Not a big thing. It’s just you

28 jump — 862 is for February the 8th, and then the 8414

1 next summary chart you have is for February the

2 12th; is that correct?

3 A. That’s correct.

4 Q. All right. So you did not do a summary

5 chart for February the 11th, correct?

6 A. No.

7 Q. Now, on February 11th, based on your

8 investigation, the night of February 11th, right at

9 the end of the night, were you aware that Janet

10 Arvizo had asked somebody to give her a ride?

11 A. The 11th or the 12th. I’m not sure which

12 day.

13 Q. And the ride actually occurred at — the

14 ride — the Rolls Royce left the ranch at about 1:52

15 in the morning; is that correct?

16 A. The person I interviewed wasn’t real certain

17 about times, so —

18 Q. You’re familiar with the gate logs, right?

19 A. Yes. But —

20 Q. Did you look at the entries on the gate

21 logs?

22 A. I did. But not having them in front of me,

23 I couldn’t state with certainty.

24 Q. Whatever time it was, it was sometime in the

25 early morning hours of the 12th when the Rolls Royce

26 left the property; is that your understanding?

27 A. Yes.

28 Q. So my question was, were you aware that she 8415

1 was asking, around midnight, somewhere just before

2 midnight on the 11th, for a ride?

3 A. That is my understanding, yes.

4 Q. All right. There you go.

5 So on the 11th, I want to follow the same

6 procedure, with the Court’s permission, and I’m

7 going to write up at the top 02-11-03. And since

8 the 12th was a Wednesday, the 11th had to be a

9 Tuesday. We learned that. Right?

10 A. Sounds good.

11 Q. Okay. And now I’m going to ask, with the

12 Court’s permission, to put up page two of Exhibit

13 458.

14 THE COURT: All right.

15 MR. SANGER: All right.

16 Q. Page two of 458. All right. Now, referring

17 to – I’m going to refer to these three calls down

18 here. Hit the line numbers, I’ll make it easier.

19 Referring to these three calls down here

20 that say Santa Barbara, so that looks like 17, 18

21 and 19, correct?

22 A. Correct.

23 Q. And I think you told us these are the phone

24 records of Jay Jackson, correct?

25 A. Correct.

Here is some additional information on Dimond’s lack of respect from her journalistic peers.  This is an excerpt from a December 1993 LA Times article called “Television News ’93 – Where Entertainment And Reality Blur” by Howard Rosenberg ( a subscription to Highbeam is required to read the entire article):

A seminal moment in 1993′s incestuous media process came in August when “CBS This Morning” co-host Paula Zahn conducted an interview about those widely reported sexual abuse allegations that a 13-year-old boy had made against Jackson.

The person she interviewed was Diane Dimond.

Diane Dimond of the syndicated “Hard Copy.”

“Hard Copy” the notorious tabloid series.

Zahn was respectful, if not reverential. Had Dimond heard of other boys being involved? Had she heard of the existence of incriminating photos? CBS News had joined the inquiring minds wanting to know. “Hard Copy” was working on those angles, Dimond disclosed.

CBS News and the extraterrestrial “Hard Copy” merging on coverage of Michael Jackson? It was an exotic hybrid that probably sent Edward R. Murrow spinning in his grave.

The media were doing plenty of their own spinning, which included tabloid and local news choppers spending enough time above Jackson’s various residences in Southern California to earn frequent-flier mileage. And late in the year — after he had aborted his world tour because of a reported prescription drug problem — came the Search for Michael. The search for the Loch Ness Monster was less intense.

Where was he doing his rehab? In Switzerland? In Oz? Inquiring quacks just had to know. How big was this story? So big that on the evening of the crucial vote on the North American Free Trade Agreement in Congress, the NBC affiliate in Los Angeles topped its major newscast with 15 minutes of Jackson.

Trade barriers were about to fall; news standards had already fallen.

Whether Jackson is guilty or innocent of sexual molestation is not the point. How the media have covered his story is.

Anyone with a damning tale to tell about him, even if unsubstantiated, has been assured of air time somewhere. Heading the group was a man who insisted he had been Jackson’s “friend.” Negative statements made about Jackson by his estranged sister LaToya Jackson continued to get wide play even after she admitted on “Today” that she could not substantiate her innuendo about her brother molesting young boys.

A former Jackson housekeeper and four of his former security guards made damaging statements to “Hard Copy” in recent interviews that the tabloid program paid them for. Paying for interviews is odious enough, a sure way to encourage interviewees to do the bidding of the payer and give a performance. Omitting mention of that payment compounds the sin. And that is exactly what several stations did in excerpting the “Hard Copy” remarks of some of Jackson’s former employees.

There was one positive side to the Michael Jackson coverage in 1993. At least no one implied that he was associated with Heidi Fleiss. Or that he was Heidi Fleiss.

But “Hard Copy” may be working on it.

I want to take a moment to reiterate a point that I made earlier: we as fans need to step up and increase our knowledge of the exculpatory facts that prove that Michael Jackson was innocent. We can’t rely on hearsay, innuendoes, speculation, or conjecture, nor can we simply describe MJ’s childlike personality, heart of gold, charitable endeavors, or his parental abilities.  The performance of Mike Garcia and Steve Manning was UNACCEPTABLE!

I’m going to say something, and it may sound harsh, but it needs to be said: don’t insult my intelligence by telling me that MJ is innocent because he’s a nice, sweet, childlike person who would never harm a child! That’s just as bad as haters who say that MJ is guilty because he bleached his skin, butchered his face, and was effeminate!  When you use MJ’s childlike persona as a sign of innocence, haters or skeptics could see it as a sign of guilt! They will say “Maybe he did it out of childlike curiosity instead of a sexual desire!”

In the days and weeks after MJ died, I quickly got fed up seeing the endless list of people who knew MJ for 5 minutes at one point in their lives talk about his childlike personality and charitable contributions as exculpatory evidence whenever the allegations were brought up! That’s why I set out on this mission to learn the truth, and 2 years later, here I am, helping to run one of the most informative MJ blogs on the net!

The performance of Mike Garcia was valiant, but unconvincing. Steve Manning was downright awful! For him to repeatedly refer to Jordan Chandler as “Ryan” is symptomatic of how freakin’ CLUELESS he is! At least Anthony DeCurtis had the decency to keep his mouth shut, except for the one worthless comment that he uttered during the entire segment.

Congratulations, Tru TV! Congratulations, Ryan Smith! You guys succeeded in your goal of entertaining your viewers, as opposed to educating them! You gave Dimond a platform to misinform more and more of your (mostly) gullible, impressionable viewers!

This segment validates a decision I made several months ago to do a new post called “How to Talk to a Michael Jackson Hater”, which will consist of talking points that fans can use to effectively make the case for MJ’s innocence. For example, here is what I would have loved to have asked Dimond, and this will surely be included in the upcoming post:

Mrs. Dimond,

When Tom Sneddon filed his initial felony complaint against Michael Jackson on December 18^th, 2003, it consisted of the following charges which allegedly occurred from February 7^th through March 10^th, 2003:

• 7 counts of lewd acts upon a child
• 2 counts of administering an intoxicant

However, in the grand jury indictment that was filed on April 21^st, 2004, the dates of the alleged offenses shifted to February 20^th through March 12^th, 2003, and the charges were materially altered as follows:

• 4 counts of lewd acts upon a child
• 1 count of an attempted lewd act upon a child
• 4 counts of administering an intoxicant
• 1 count of conspiracy to commit child abduction, false imprisonment, and extortion

Mrs. Dimond, how do you explain that discrepancy in the charges?  How do you explain the addition of the conspiracy charge, when Sneddon investigated Michael Jackson for almost 6 months before raiding Neverland? Why wasn’t Michael Jackson charged with conspiracy in the initial complaint? Why weren’t the 5 unindicted co-conspirators charged, even after they refused immunity for their testimony against Michael Jackson? And why did the start date of the alleged crimes suddenly shift by almost 2 weeks, and the end date shift by 2 days?

That’s an example of the type of substantive, analytical, well-researched and straightforward questions that need to be asked of Michael Jackson haters. I’d LOVE to see Dimond spin her way out of that one! That’s guaranteed to shut her up real quick!  And do you guys ever notice how the media loves to question the conspiracy charge AFTER the trial (using it as a scapegoat for MJ’s acquittal), but they never questioned it BEFORE the trial, when it appeared out of thin air when MJ was indicted!!

Here is some additional info on Dimond that can be used for additional research:

• Fans United For Michael Jackson’s Legacy did a recent post titled “Turn Off, Tune Out, Shut Off Diane Dimond”

• A two-part dossier from MJJ-777 which compiles all of her dirty work. Here is part one and part two; part three is on the way!

• The section of the Veritas Project aptly titled “Diane Dimond: Paragon of Deceit”.

• LunaJo67’s four video compilations of Dimond’s coverage! This is over an hour of footage! It’s definitely not for the faint of heart!  Open her “Michael Jackson: The Special Parts” playlist, and you’ll see the four “Diane Dimond Clips” videos. Have your barf bags ready!

• MJJJustice Project’s post “Dimond – Duplicity is Thy Name”. Another excellent analysis of her clever, yet deceitful spin of the facts. In this post, they analyze her 1995 radio interview on “The Ken and Barkley Show”, which was transcribed in MJ’s lawsuit against Paramount Pictures Corporation (the company behind “Hard Copy”.)

• Filthy Tabloid Trash’s Open Letter to TruTV, respectfully asking them to reconsider their decision to hire Diane Dimond to cover the upcoming trial. Obviously this letter fell on deaf ears!

• The Edgy Matters blog post from June 25^th, 2004, titled “C-O-N-SPIRACY”” where Dimond was sarcastically “charged” as the #1 co-conspirator in helping Sneddon violate the gag order by planting stories in the media to taint the jury pool and convict MJ in the court of public opinion!  And let’s not forget their June 23^rd, 2005 post titled “Diane Dimond vs. Journalism Code of Ethics”, a must read!!

• And of course, we here at Vindicate MJ blasted Dimond in this overview of MJ’s 1995 Lawsuit against her and Victor Gutierrez, and in Jacques Peretti’s “What Really Happened” crockumentary!

Here is Mesereau speaking at a law conference in 2005 titled “From O.J. To Martha To Michael: What Have We Learned About the Conduct and Coverage of Trials?”, and once the conversation turns to the media’s bottom feeders at 5:00, guess who is the ONLY media hack who gets name-checked?

In an unrelated note, here is Linda Deutsch’s respectful rebuttal to Mesereau’s media tirade! She was one of the few journalists who was fair to MJ; in fact, MJ actually CALLED her to thank her!  Unbelievable! (Personally, this surprises me, because Aphrodite Jones was never thanked publically or privately by MJ for writing Conspiracy.) She made an excellent point when she suggested that had there not been so many media restrictions, the public would have gotten a better idea of what was happening in the courtroom (e.g. sealed pleadings, no cameras in the courtroom, etc.). Her description of the conspiracy charge was dead on!

Here is Mesereau respectfully disagreeing with a reporter who suggested that the mainstream media should be given more credit for the professional journalists that they hire by slamming the mainstream media  for ALSO hiring tabloid hacks with a vested interest in a conviction!

(To read a summary of the entire conference on, open this link.)

In closing, I truly hope that this roundtable discussion was a learning experience for all of you.  You get to see Dimond as the lying, deceptive snake that she is, constantly insinuating that MJ is guilty, yet never explicity saying it, while simultaneously extolling him with every compliment under the sun! (Regarding his musical legacy and pop culture impact.) If you didn’t already know anything about Dimond, you would walk away from this special saying to yourself “I don’t understand why so many MJ fans hate her! She was fair and balanced, didn’t call him a freak or Wacko Jacko, praised his musical talents, explicitly stated that the jury’s verdict is what matters, and refuted the ‘secret rooms’ nonsense, so what’s the big deal?” And that’s EXACTLY the image that Dimond wants to project to the general public! She qualifies everything she said with such statements as “I’m not saying he’s a pedophile”, “I don’t know what went on at Neverland because I wasn’t there”, and “We need to remember the not guilty verdicts!”, among others, in order to give viewers the appearance of objectivity.

Obviously, it didn’t work with this viewer! I saw through Dimond like she was a window that had just been cleaned with Windex or Mr. Clean! As someone who knows these allegations backwards and forwards, I was able to immediately detect all of Dimond’s half-truths, and I truly hope that post can help turn the tide of public opinion against her!

I will respectfully ask that everyone email and tweet this post to not only Dimond, but the other members of the panel as well! They ALL need to be educated on the facts!

Finally, let’s end this post with Joe Jackson’s thoughts on Dimond and her partner in crime Nancy Grace! At 3:48, he lets the fans at Neverland know how he feels about them!

UPDATE September 23, 2011

Here is a partial transcript of an episode of  “Issues With Jane Velez-Mitchell” from March 6th, 2009, titled “Cases That Changed America”. The panel included Aphrodite Jones, and she was outnumbered 3 to 1 by MJ haters JVM, Lisa Bloom, and Diane Dimond! (The full transcript can be read here.) As you can see, Bloom and Dimon scraped the bottom of the barrel to come up with excuses for MJ’s acquittal, clinging mostly to the conspiracy charge!

Notice how Lisa Bloom tried to defend the Arvizos by saying that they were not in it for the money because they never sued MJ, but when Aphrodite tried to say that they went to Larry Feldman first, and Sneddon got the law changed that prevented lawsuits from being filed before a criminal trial, Velez Mitchell cut her off! Jones asked JVM to “wait a minute“, but JVM replied with “let’s move on, because there’s so much to cover here“.

LISA BLOOM, ANCHOR, IN SESSION: There`s no question that his celebrity status is what led to his acquittal in part, because we know from some of the jurors who were interviewed afterwards that back in the jury room during the deliberations, some of the jurors said, “We can`t convict my Michael. Not my Michael. My Michael could not have done this.” 

You know, we have celebrity culture in this country that`s almost like royalty. There are certain people who are above the law, and I think in the Michael Jackson case, his celebrity status is what put it over the top. Yes, there were other factors, but none as big as the celebrity factor.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes, but Aphrodite Jones, I have to say that I sat there along with you and Diane, and the conspiracy aspect of this case made my head explode. I couldn`t make head or tails of it. They`re keeping the whole family hostage. Meanwhile, they`re getting waxes and they`re going on shopping sprees. It was convoluted, and some said it just didn`t make sense.

APHRODITE JONES, AUTHOR, “MICHAEL JACKSON CONSPIRACY”: It did not make sense.

First of all, to charge Michael Jackson with conspiracy to hold a family hostage when, in fact, they were using his money and his limos and his Rolls Royces to travel around? It`s bizarre.

The idea that — I disagree with Lisa in that the jury perhaps had some fascination, certainly, with Michael`s celebrity status, but remember these people were looking at evidence that, for all intents and purposes, showed us at the end of the day that the Arviso family, the accuser`s family, seemed to take the playbook from Jordy Chandler`s lawsuit and follow suit.

There really was conflicting testimony from the key witnesses: that`s the accuser and his brother. There really was no absolute evidence that Jackson did ply anybody with alcohol.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Listen, I want to bring it down to what we`re learning from this case. Diane Dimond, you covered it extensively. You wrote about it in your book. Where did the prosecution go wrong?

DIANE DIMOND, JOURNALIST/SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: I think they made it too complicated, Jane. I completely agree with you. You and I sat in that courtroom along with Aphrodite and a whole lot of other reporters. And there were times during that 4 1/2 months that we`d look at each other and go, “Huh? Why are they spending so much time on the phone bills?”

Why — why did they make this seemingly simple story — this kid was allegedly molested by this man — into such a complicated thing? I never could figure it out. And I think that`s one reason he was acquitted.

BLOOM: Jane — Jane one very important point to respond to Aphrodite, throughout the trial, before the trial, after the trial, everybody said this 13-year-old accuser is in it for the money. 

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Right.

BLOOM: Unlike Jordy Chandler, the previous child, he never filed a civil suit before, during, and now even years afterwards. He has never asked for one dime. And that — that was proven to be completely false. 

JONES: Yes, but, you know, Jane, wait a minute. 

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Let me move on, because there`s so much to cover here. 

JONES: OK.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: The Jackson case, we were there, a circus often turning a serious child molestation case into what felt like a Las Vegas act with Jackson as the ringmaster. I`m sure you`ll remember Jackson hopping on the roof of his SUV. We`re going to see it over and over today, playing to the crowd, looking for all the world like he was on stage at Madison Square Garden. There he is. I was there at that moment. It was crazy.

DIMOND: That was on arraignment day. Do you remember that, Jane? That was on arraignment day when you`re going into court to hear the charges against you and that`s what he did.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Absolutely. And not to be outdone, his own family got in on the theatrics. I`m sure you remember this, guys. They arrived at the trial, all dressed in matching white outfits as a sign of solidarity.

Now, as I watch this, covering the case in the courtroom along with you guys, it seemed to me that Michael Jackson was fighting back in a way that no defendant had ever done before, using psychology and emotion. Diane, it was almost that he was taking the skills that he learned on stage and applying it to the legal arena.

DIMOND: His father made sure that he was a showman from the age of, what, 6 years old. To me, the jumping on the SUV was a — I was agape at that. But it was “pajama drama day” that really did it for me.

Everybody remembers Michael Jackson was late for court. There was an arrest warrant issued for him that day. He was at a hospital complaining of back pain. And he comes to court in his pajamas.

But what nobody ever mentions is that`s the day that the young boy was going to spend his first full day on the stand testifying to these very, very serious charges. What did the jury do, Jane? You saw it. Aphrodite, you saw it. The jury was transfixed on Michael Jackson sitting five feet away from them in his pajamas, looking like he was in pain and disheveled. 

JONES: Wait a minute. Diane, we saw that, but remember, from the waist up, you only saw Jackson in his — his jacket, blazer.

DIMOND: He had on blue pajamas with clouds on them.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: The blue pajama bottoms. You have to see them right there.

DIMOND: Come on.

JONES: I was told by the jury foreman that he honestly did not know that those were pajamas until after the fact.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, whatever. You would think his team could have brought him some trousers to wear.

BLOOM: But you know who could see it? The accuser, when he was testifying, he could see those pajamas. I`m sure it was distracting to him. And part of what he testified about was, part of the molestation was afterwards Michael Jackson asked him to put on his pajama pants.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Bingo.

JONES: Well, that was bizarre, clearly bingo (ph). But if Jackson was trying to detract from that testimony of pajamas, don`t you think he wouldn`t have worn the pajamas? I just think it was Jackson being Jackson, not feeling well, not being disheveled.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: It`s part of the show.

UPDATE January 14th, 2012

I’ve finally been able to get the video of this discussion uploaded! I will add it to the beginning of this post as soon as it’s available in the next day or two! In the meantime, here are Parts 1 and 2 of a 5 part series on the post-discussion interview with Ryan Smith, Diane Dimond, Steve Manning, and Mike Garcia. They accepted questions from callers, and Dimond was much more well-behaved than she was at the earlier discussion!

By the way, if you want to know why Diane Dimond is still able to find work as a “journalist”, then please listen to the caller at the 13:39 mark in the second video! It’s UNBELIEVEABLE how guillible and downright STUPID some people are when it comes to Dimond’s reporting!

UPDATE March 1st, 2012

Have you ever asked yourself “What do Michael Jackson’s parents really think about Diane Dimond?” If so, then watch the video below!