SAFARI JOE MOLESTATION CHARGES TRIAL

What struck me most, as someone who spent more than a decade reporting on allegations against Jackson, was how closely Robson’s and Safechuck’s stories mirrored those of Jordie Chandler and Gavin Arvizo, the 13-year-old whose allegations prompted the 2005 trial in which Jackson was acquitted on 10 felony counts, including four counts of child molestation and one of attempted child molestation. The two-part documentary, which premieres on HBO this Sunday, gives Robson and Safechuck, together with their surviving family members, the opportunity to tell their stories of being first befriended and then seduced, emotionally and-they allege-sexually, by Michael Jackson. Dennis, who had been diagnosed as bipolar shortly before his wife left, never got over losing his family, all because his son, then five, had won a local dance contest, and the first prize was a meeting with his idol, Michael Jackson. I asked him what had prompted this sudden change of heart. He had just gotten through to his wife and now he wanted to change his story and give me a quote praising Jackson. Then, a week later, Dennis Robson called me back. Dennis’s sorrow was compounded by his own dark secret: he himself had been molested as a child, he told me, and had been unable to bring himself to tell anyone for 30 years.

Dennis explained that Joy had taken Wade and his sister to Los Angeles so Wade could be with Jackson, adding that he was afraid that he might lose his son if he said anything against the pop superstar. Wade’s mother, Joy, wasn’t talking, but his father, Dennis, surprised me by returning my call from his home in Australia. I naturally wanted to know if Jackson had befriended any other young boys, and it wasn’t long before I heard the names Wade Robson and Jimmy Safechuck. Back in 1993, when the first charges of sexual abuse were leveled at Michael Jackson by a 13-year-old boy named Jordan “Jordie” Chandler, I was assigned to write about the case for Vanity Fair. The anguished voice of Wade Robson’s father will always haunt me.

Safari joe molestation charges