PART 2
The MJ Companies’ sponsoring and/or hiring of Wade Robson and his mother
Wade Robson’s allegation: "In order to arrange for their immigration to the United States, Michael Jackson had MJJ Productions and MJJ Ventures hire Plaintiff and his mother, and arranged for Plaintiff, his mother and sister to move permanently to California. Plaintiff alleges this was done by Michael Jackson, MJJ Productions and MJJ Ventures for the explicit purpose of allowing Michael Jackson access to Plaintiff for sexual abuse." (FAC, page 10)
Joy Robson’s deposition: According to Joy, the idea of immigrating to the USA was her husband Dennis’ idea (“It was actually Dennis's idea when we were here in the January (1990) -- and we were at Disneyland. It was his idea then."). After their first January/February 1990 trip to Neverland, Joy and Wade returned to USA to participate in an L.A. Gear photo shoot with Michael in May 1990. (L.A. Gear paid for this visit - not MJ’s companies.)
Joy claims MJ was excited about Wade's talent saying things like "Little one and -- and I are going to rule the world" and this made them think more seriously about immigrating with the hope that MJ could help Wade’s career. She could not remember when she made the final decision ("perhaps after the February (1991) trip") - although they had consulted a lawyer about their plans to immigrate before November 1990. Joy clearly stated that the reason they wanted to move to the US was to pursue Wade's career in the entertainment industry.
The Companies’ role in all this was that when Joy eventually decided to immigrate in September 1991, the Robsons needed a sponsor. Joy Robson asked MJ to help them with that, and MJ instructed his office to do it. (He instructed them, not the other way around.) During her deposition, the lawyers brought up quotes from her 2005 testimony: "And did you ask him to do that?" And you responded: "Yes, pretty much. Basically, I asked for help, so that was the only way we could stay, so yes." Also quoted from her 2005 testimony: "Did you feel like you owed him anything after he helped sponsor your family to stay in the U.S.?" And your response is: "No, not at all."
The following quote was not mentioned in Joy’s deposition excerpts, but in 2005 Joy testified that MJ started sponsoring them only after they had already been in the US for six months:
Do you recall telling and testifying to the fact that what actually happened in September of 1991 is that Mr. Jackson was your sponsor when you came to the United States with your son?
Not initially. We were here for six months and then he offered, he offered to sponsor after we arrived.
By the way, in 2005 Joy also testified that after they immigrated to the US they hadn’t been spending a lot of time with MJ.
Q. And then from that point, from September of 1991 up till, let’s just say, September 1993 - okay? - the time frame involved, you and your son spent a great deal of time with Michael Jackson, you were around him a lot, correct?
Joy Robson: I don’t think so.
Q. You were not at the ranch on a number of occasions during 1991?
Joy Robson: My memory is in the entire time we’ve lived here since 1991, we’ve only been at the ranch with Michael on four occasions in 14 years.
Q. Four occasions?
Joy Robson: Every other time we’ve been here without him.
Q. Would that be the same for your son?
Joy Robson: Yes.
Joy also stated that it was up to her to do everything in order to further Wade’s career and to survive in the US. The Companies’ lawyer asked Joy, quoting an interview that she had given in 2011:
“You also said: "I realized very early on that if we were going to make it here, it was going to be up to me. I couldn't really rely on" -- and you said, "Michael kind of lived in a bubble and had a different reality to ours. And so I was the one who had to find agents." Do you remember that?
JOY ROBSON: Yes. (...) The funny part is Wade -- Michael did find an agent for Wade, but it was CAA (Creative Artists Agency), and Wade was 7 years old and not known in this country. And CAA was not going to be any -- and that's why I said Michael lived in a bubble. He had no idea of anything outside of his realm. So -- Wade wasn't in that category for CAA. It would not have been beneficial for him to be with CAA.
MS. KLEINDIENST: Right.
JOY ROBSON: Michael tried to help, but he just didn't understand what needed to be done.
MS. KLEINDIENST: And when you were asked if you really had to manage Wade's career, you responded: "I did. I did everything." Is that right?
JOY ROBSON: I did what I had to do to -- to make things happen.
(Clearly, Joy’s portrayal of MJ as “living in a bubble” goes against Wade’s current portrayal of MJ as this shrewd maffia boss running “the most sophisticated child sexual abuse procurement and facilitation organization the world has ever known”.)
As we know, Joy said Wade was in three videos with MJ (Black or White, Jam and Heal The World) and he was paid around $200 each for Jam and Heal the World and $500 for Black or White. That would obviously not pay their bills and facilitate their continued stay in the USA. “Nobody pays bills with money from videos”, said Joy in her deposition. She said they survived on their own reserves.
So rather than the immigration being arranged in some evil plot by the Companies, it was arranged because Joy wanted to move to the US with Wade and Chantal, to pursue Wade’s career. When she made this decision, she asked MJ to help them with the sponsoring and/or hiring, and in turn, after the Robsons had already been in the US for six months, MJ instructed his companies to do so. Furthermore, according to Wade’s own mother, once they moved to the US, they rarely even met MJ. Given the detailed e-mail correspondence between Wade and his mother, once again we are lead to think what Wade alleges is another deliberate lie.
The Charli Michaels story
On page 9 of his Fourth Amended Complaint (FAC), Wade Robson tells a story which is based on a witness statement by Charli Michaels from the 1993-94 investigation, to support his claims. Charli Michaels was a female security guard who was working at Neverland in 1990-92. She is one of those disgruntled ex-employees who, in the wake of the 1993 Chandler allegations, went to the tabloid media, to be paid for stories about MJ (Charli Michaels was on three of Diane Dimond’s Hard Copy shows, telling her story, and then she also joined a lawsuit against MJ, which was later dismissed).
The problem is, this story is a false story and Wade knows it. That on Mother's Day 1990 Charli Michaels found Joy Robson crying at Neverland and upset, is true, but the rest of the story is an invention by Michaels. Joy already testified about it in 2005. She said that she was upset and crying because she could not find Wade all day and it was Mother's Day, so it hurt her that Wade would rather spend the day with MJ than with her.
However, Charli Michaels put a twist on this story. She claimed that Joy was upset "because she was restricted from seeing (Wade) while he was in the company of Michael Jackson. (Joy) said that Norma Staikos had told her that Michael Jackson and (Wade) were rehearsing a dance routine in the theater at Neverland, and that (Joy) was not to disturb them during the rehearsal. (Joy) also told Ms. Michaels that Ms. Staikos had prohibited (Joy) from sleeping in the main house at Neverland while Wade was staying in Michael Jackson's room."
Joy’s own version is totally different - and now she repeated the same story that she told in 2005: she was crying and upset because it was Mother’s Day and couldn’t find Wade and because he spent the day with MJ rather than with her. She does not claim that Norma Staikos restricted her from seeing her son while he was with MJ. In fact, her story is contradictory to Charli Michaels’ story. Michaels claimed that Staikos told Joy where Wade and MJ were (rehearsing in the theater), but she also told her not to disturb them. In contrast, Joy said she did not find them all day (“I'd spent the whole day looking for him” and “I would spend my time on a golf cart driving around the ranch looking for them”.) Why would she do that if she had been told by Staikos where they were?
It is also not true that Joy was prohibited from sleeping in the main house at Neverland while Wade was staying in MJ’s room. In her 2005 testimony Joy said that she would typically stay in the “rose bedroom” during their visits at Neverland. It is in the main house, the same house where MJ’s bedroom is. She also stated in her 2005 testimony that she was free to walk in and out of MJ’s bedroom while at Neverland and MJ never put any restrictions on that. She stated that she could go to MJ’s bedroom “at any time I wanted” and that she never got the feeling that anybody was trying to keep her out of MJ’s room.
It is clear why Wade would rather want to embrace Charli Michael’s version of the story than his mother’s. Because it involves Staikos (unlike his mother’s version) and through Staikos he is trying to implicate the companies. But the thing is, Wade knows that the version he uses is untrue -
his mother told him that in an e-mail exchange on February 15, 2016. Despite of that Wade put the untrue version of the story in his Fourth Amended Complaint that was filed in September 2016.
Once again, it shows him as a person who does not have any qualms about lying in court documents and to knowingly embrace untrue stories if they serve him. (And most probably, that is the same when he embraces stories by other highly questionable “witnesses”, such as Blanca Francia or Mariano Quindoy.)
Joy Robson: “Wade should have had an Oscar”
In her deposition Joy stated that she never believed MJ molested children until her son changed his story in 2012. In fact, Joy stated that Wade was always very convincing in saying that MJ did not molest him. Through quotes from Joy’s 1994 deposition we learn that when, in the wake of the Chandler allegations, Joy asked her son if he was molested he was very convincing in saying that he was not. She still thinks he was convincing. Only in the hindsight of Wade’s allegations she adds what Wade is telling her now about allegedly being “groomed” by MJ on the phone to be that convincing.
"Did your son respond?" And you said: ' "Yes." He said: "What did your son say?". You said: "He laughed and said it was ridiculous." Was that accurate?
Joy Robson: Yes.
And you believed Wade when he said it was ridiculous, right?
Joy Robson: He was very convincing. And, you know, I --I look back at it now, and he's -- he's told me how he was groomed for this, and Michael would talk to him about that. And I -- I had no idea that that was going on. That was what these conversations were on the phone a lot, where he was being groomed and taught what to say. And he did a good job. He had me convinced. He was -- he would look me in the eye time and time again and tell me that nothing ever happened. And I believed him. I thought -- I thought that he would be telling me the truth. But he was so frightened by what he was being told on the other end, he was too afraid to tell me the truth.
That's what you've since learned, right?
Joy Robson: Yes.
But throughout the time up until passed --
Joy Robson: He was very convincing.
Yeah. And throughout -- up until after Michael passed away, he always was very consistent in his story to you that nothing ever happened?
Joy Robson: He was.
And he was believable?
Joy Robson: He was -- he should have had an Oscar. He was very convincing.
(BTW, Wade claims that MJ “groomed” him in a similar manner over the phone in 2005 as well - as an adult man.)
She found MJ equally convincing in stating his innocence when the Chandler allegations surfaced. MJ told her that the Chandlers were after money and that they were trying to extort him. Also based on her own encounter with June Chandler, Joy felt that June was after money.
In an e-mail she wrote to Wade on November 17, 2012 (Exhibit 15), she stated this about MJ: "He just seemed so innocent that I really never thought that there was any truth to the allegations." She also reflected on the the Chandler allegations: "When the Chandlers accepted a settlement from him, that just convinced me that it was all about money, because I would never have been able to let it go for money if I thought he had touched you. I remember saying at the time that no amount of money would make that OK for me. I would not have stopped until he was behind bars. I still feel that way."
For the record, MJ told Joy the truth about the Chandlers: they really were after money and nothing else. For details (richly sourced from the Chandlers’ own book) see
this website and particularly the following articles:
The Chandlers’ Monetary Demands ,
The Settlement).