A child sex trafficking lawsuit filed against Michael Jackson’s estate in February has been dismissed, reports Billboard.
Federal Judge Hernán D. Vera ruled on Wednesday, August 12th, that Edward, Dominic, Marie-Nicole, and Aldo Cascio’s claims belong in confidential arbitration rather than a public courtroom due to a 2019 settlement between the family and Jackson’s estate.
“Although the allegations are horrific, the court is without discretion to do aught but enforce the language of the arbitration clause,” Judge Vera wrote in his decision. “While plaintiffs are fully within their rights to raise questions about unconscionability, those challenges must be presented later before an arbitrator.”
The Cascios alleged in the lawsuit, filed on February 27th, that Jackson raped and molested them as children over the course of more than a decade. “Jackson groomed and brainwashed each plaintiff,” wrote their attorney Howard King. “After the abuse started, he isolated them emotionally, and sometimes physically, from responsible adults and from each other. 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.”
Per Billboard, the Cascios grew up with Jackson and once described themselves as his “second family.” After previously defending Jackson against pedophilia allegations, the four siblings and their brother Frank privately claimed in 2019 that Dan Reed’s HBO documentary Leaving Neverland had “deprogrammed” them.
At the time, the Jackson estate paid them a $3.5 million settlement without admitting wrongdoing, but the Cascios now claim they were coerced into signing it, making the agreement void and unenforceable.
“It’s disappointing, but not surprising, that the decision on whether the Cascios were duped into signing an unconscionable agreement with an arbitration clause will be made by an arbitrator rather than a jury of peers,” King told Billboard. “The family had hoped the court would allow for a public trial over the decades-long molestations of the Cascio siblings by Michael Jackson and the ensuing cover-up by his advisors. Instead, the family will seek justice from the dark confines of a private conference room.”
Jackson estate lawyer Marty Singer wholeheartedly denied the allegations in February, calling the lawsuit a “desperate money grab” and a “scheme to obtain hundreds of millions of dollars from Michael’s estate and companies.”
Though Jackson was never convicted of child sex abuse during his lifetime, he settled a civil claim in 1994 over allegations made by 13-year-old Jordan Chandler without admitting wrongdoing. He was acquitted during a 2005 child molestation trial.
Antoine Fuqua’s recent film Michael was originally meant to focus on the investigation of Chandler’s accusations and portray a naive Jackson as being taken advantage of by opportunistic people with allegedly unfounded claims.
However, the Jackson estate had to spend up to $15 million to remove any mention of these allegations after rediscovering an agreement they signed, promising the film would not feature Chandler’s story.
