Two sexual abuse cases against Michael Jackson have been revived.
According to court documents obtained by The New York Times, a California appeals court ruled on Friday that two men who have accused the late Thriller singer of sexually abusing them as children would be able to resume their lawsuits against Jackson’s companies.
Wade Robson, 40, and James Safechuck, 45, have alleged that employees of MJJ Productions Inc and MJJ Ventures Inc were complicit in Jackson’s sexual abuse against them as children.
Robson and Safechuck’s lawsuits claimed that the employees acted as “co-conspirators, collaborators, facilitators and alter egos” for the abuse when they should have had a “duty of care” to protect the boys from it.
MJJ Productions Inc and MJJ Ventures Inc are now owned by Jackson’s estate, which has once again denied that the late singer abused the boys.
A lawyer for the estate, Jonathan Steinsapir, said after Friday’s decision, “We remain fully confident that Michael is innocent of these allegations, which are contrary to all credible evidence and independent corroboration, and which were only first made years after Michael’s death by men motivated solely by money.”
Vince Finaldi, the lawyer for Robson and Safechuck, said in a statement that the court had overturned “incorrect rulings in these cases, which were against California law and would have set a dangerous precedent that endangered children”.
Robson and Safechuck were the subjects of the 2019 HBO documentary Leaving Neverland. In the documentary, they claimed Jackson molested them as children and cultivated relationships with their families to access them.
Jackson died in 2009.
Source: www.music-news.com
