Michael Jackson and Michael Vick. It's amazing how some people can't let shit go.

[CatWoman]

72. ....

Michael Jackson Conspiracy (New Edition) is the only full account of the phenomenon that was "the Michael Jackson trial." Providing vivid details that people never saw in the news, Jones describes the accuser and his family as a band of grifters, a group of gold-diggers, who were looking for a payday in Hollywood . An intense account of what really happened in the Santa Maria courtroom, the author reveals the sham behind the allegations of accuser Gavin Arvizo, who had also "targeted" other celebrities like Chris Tucker, Jay Leno, and George Lopez, before landing the biggest fish of all: Michael Jackson. The book exposes, undeniably, why the jury found Michael Jackson NOT GUILTY on all counts, and how a media frenzy ignored the actual evidence, opting instead for ratings and sensationalism, at the expense Jackson's reputation.

http://www.amazon.com/Michael-Jackson-Conspiracy-New-Edition/dp/0615686206

The audience is transported back to 1993 and taken through the first set of allegations levelled against Jackson. Much time is dedicated to the controversial settlement of the civil suit brought by Jordan Chandler's parents. That settlement, Jones suggests, is the primary cause of many people's reservations about Jackson.

Former Jackson manager Frank Dileo says that Jackson was tricked into the settlement by business advisors more interested in the star's earning power than his public image. Thomas Mesereau, who represented Jackson in his 2005 trial, adds that the settlement also set a precedent for anybody wishing to extort money from Michael Jackson, sending the message that he was an easy target. It created an attitude, he says: 'Why work when you can just sue Michael
Jackson?'

It was Jackson's concern over the impact of the settlement on his public image, Jones claims, that inspired him to let Martin Bashir into his inner sanctum. Seduced by Bashir's promise that his documentary would centre on Jackson's quest to achieve an International Children's Holiday, the star gave Bashir unprecedented access to his life in the hope that it would vindicate him of the 1993 child abuse allegations. But Bashir manipulated the footage in order to advance his own career, Jones says. Bashir ended up crossing the pond to work as a news anchor for ABC, while the documentary Jackson hoped would vindicate him actually wound up serving as the catalyst to a second set of allegations.

Thomas Mesereau describes former DA Tom Sneddon - who tried to prosecute Jackson in 1993 and brought charges against him in 2003 - as being "obsessed to the point of absurdity". Paul Rodriguez, jury foreman in Jackson's trial, agrees. "He came across like he was just doing anything he could to pursuade us to look at things his way, regardless of the evidence," he says. "It was almost like he had a vendetta against him."

Criminal defence lawyer and celebrity trial expert Mickey Sherman adds:

"I think [the prosecution] got too emotionally invested in the case. I think Tom Sneddon seemed gleeful. Gleeful. He took a little too much pleasure in dishing out misery to Michael Jackson... There was such an eagerness to dish out some bad stuff to Michael Jackson that the credibility was, if not lost, certainly diminished."

Jones asserts that the media ignored the not guilty verdicts in Jackson's trial and continued to portray him as a predator because it made 'great headlines on the covers of rag papers'. Mesereau adds that the media was 'humiliated' by the verdicts because reporters had been predicting a conviction and 'almost salivating about him being hauled off to jail'. Jones concludes that the trial traumatised Jackson to such an extent that he was unable to sleep, and this is why he died of a propofol overdose last summer.

http://charlesthomsonjournalist.blogspot.com/2010/04/preview-true-crime-with-aphrodite-jones.html