Artist News Legal

New Jackson child abuse claims set for court hearing next June

By | Published on Tuesday 1 October 2013

Michael Jackson

While the jury in the long-running Jacksons v AEG court battle continue to deliberate (well actually, they took yesterday off, but they’ll definitely be deliberating later today), a date has been put in the diary for the next Michael Jackson-related court hearing.

A claim by choreographer Wade Robson against the Jackson estate has been given the green light to proceed to court, and on Friday a judge set a 2 Jun 2014 start date. As previously reported, Robson claims that, after the late king of pop befriended him when he was just five years old, the singer subsequently sexually abused him. He is suing the estate for damages.

Robson’s main challenge when his case reaches the LA courts next summer will be to explain why, if he is now claiming Jackson abused him when he was a child, he vehemently denied anything untoward had occurred when asked to testify in the pop star’s 2005 trial over other allegations of child abuse. In that case a former housekeeper of Jackson’s claimed she had seen the singer showering with Robson when he was eight or nine years old, but the choreographer insisted there was never any abuse.

It is thought that Robson will say that Jackson brainwashed him, and that it wasn’t until after the singer’s death in 2009 and the birth of his own son that he was psychologically and emotionally able to understand what happened during the times he spent with the popstar. It’s also thought Robson’s legal team hope to call an all-star witness list to testify if his case does actually reach court.

As previously reported, reps for the Jackson estate have strongly refuted Robson’s allegations, with lawyer Howard Weitzman telling TMZ back in May: “Mr Robson’s claim is outrageous and pathetic. This is a young man who has testified at least twice under oath over the past 20 years and said in numerous interviews that Michael Jackson never did anything inappropriate to him or with him. Now, nearly four years after Michael has passed, this sad and less than credible claim has been made. We are confident that the court will see this for what it is”.



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