June Chandler was the mother of the boy at the centre of the 1993 allegations. Her son, Jordan Chandler, was then 12 or 13 years old. At the time, their accusation nearly brought Jackson to trial, but when a private settlement was reached -- said to be for a sum of US$20 million -- the case was aborted.

The current case centres on allegations that Jackson molested another 13-year-old  boy, Gavin Arviso, in February or March 2003. 

However, the prosecution wanted to demonstrate a pattern of behaviour by Jackson. Thus, June Chandler's day in court, talking about her own experience more than 10 years ago.

I found the story from the Santa Maria Times (12 April 2005) to be particularly well-organised compared to many other news stories reporting on the same testimony.

From the Santa Maria Times:

The woman, testifying in Superior Court in Santa Maria, said that Jackson and her then-12-year-old son met in the summer of 1992 at a West Los Angeles car rental company owned by the boy's father.

At the time, the boy was already a fan of Jackson and had taken to dressing like the singer, she said.

[snip]

Jackson and the boy soon struck up a friendship through some 10 phone conversations lasting up to 90 minutes, she said. The woman then took her son and young daughter for several visits to the singer's Neverland Valley Ranch in the Santa Ynez Valley.

During these stays, her son slept in guest quarters on the ranch, though Jackson requested that the boy sleep with him.

In March 1993, Jackson brought the family to the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas and it was there that the first "sleepover" occurred.

Santa Maria Times:

"He was sobbing, shaking, trembling. He said, 'You don't trust me. We're a family. Why won't you allow him to be in my bedroom? ' '' the woman testified. The boy and Jackson spent the night together in a hotel suite, and soon after, the singer purchased the woman a gold Cartier bracelet. She later accepted more jewelry and a $7,000 gift certificate. [1]

This was only the beginning, but wouldn't it be reasonable for anyone to wonder what all those gifts were for?

Nonetheless, from that point on, Chandler told the court, Jordie and Jackson were inseparable. She allowed him to sleep in the singer's bedroom at Neverland Ranch, where she knew there was only one bed.

The same year, there were more trips -- to Disney World and even to Monaco, for the World Music Awards.

Santa Maria Times:

On the Monaco trip, the two spent several days isolated in a hotel room together, supposedly battling the flu. The woman testified she and her daughter went shopping during this time.

The woman also admitted that Jackson spent about 30 nights between April and June 2003 with the boy in her Santa Monica home.

Do you believe that it never crossed her mind what how compromising the situation was?

In court, June Chandler did not testify seeing Jackson molest her son.

She did however try to put an end to the relationship, and on 7 August 1993, filed a complaint with the Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services. After the financial settlement was made, however, the boy refused to cooperate with authorities.

The next part of her testimony, about her relationship with her son, was also revealing. Chandler told the court that Jordan had not spoken to her for 11 years.

Santa Maria Times:

However, the witness said she noticed a change in her son's behavior after he started spending nights with Jackson. He seemed withdrawn and sad, she told the jury.

During a visit to New York for a wedding, the boy did not speak with his family. "He didn't want to be with us," she said. "He was sullen."

Her son, now 25, was not expected to testify. The accuser has been estranged from his mother for 11 years, she testified.

When asked if it was by choice, the woman choked up, and said it was not hers.

* * * * *

 
I wonder whether, to Western audiences, June Chandler's behaviour might be difficult to understand, but here in Asia, similar behaviour occurs thousands of times every day!

Thailand, Cambodia, India and Nepal are considered the epicentre of child-trafficking for the purposes of prostitution. 

The push factor is the dire poverty in many rural areas in these countries, and perhaps a cultural tendency to see sons as more valuable than daughters. So girls are a little more dispensable than boys.

The pull factor is the huge demand for commercial sex  -- and it is domestic demand, not tourism, except as icing on the cake. Highly efficient networks of buying agents, brothel owners and protection rackets have developed to procure a steady supply of fresh young girls into the flesh market.

Typically, agents would go into poor villages and ask around, perhaps the local village head, perhaps the police constable, in order to identify families in financial distress. Then they may approach the families with offers of attractive jobs in the big cities for their teenage daughters, e.g. as housemaids, in garment factories or restaurants.

Some families may be genuinely naive and think the job offers are real, but mostly, that cannot be so after many years of such offers. Surely some girls would have escaped or reported back that they were in fact tied to brothels the moment they arrived in the cities?

Worse, many girls are sent back to their families after they developed symptoms of AIDS. Asian villages, no matter how remote, now know what AIDS means, such is the extent of the disease. In Nepal, the local name for it is the "whore's disease". 

So when you have a steady number of girls returning home after a few years away, but now dying of sexually transmitted disease, can anyone still believe the community doesn't know what is happening?

Yet, new cohorts of young girls continue to be sent to the "good jobs" in the cities. To what extent are the parents in denial? To what extent is denial facilitated by extra cash to alleviate hunger?

In Cambodia, a commonly reported scenario is one where the mother or older relative takes a young girl to a brothel, and using her as collateral, obtains a loan. The girl then has to work off the bond. There is hardly any room left for denial in such instances.

It is naturally difficult to get exact figures for such an underground industry, but estimates there are, are always mind-boggling.

In 1997, the Thai government estimated that there were about 65,000 underaged sex workers. The International Labour Organisation thought 300,000 was more probable. There would be similar or larger numbers in India, and perhaps slightly smaller numbers in Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, Philippines, Vietnam and Yunnan.

Generally, Unicef's rule of thumb is that about one in three sex workers in this region is under 18 years of age.

The traffic crosses borders. Various NGOs have estimated that every year, 10 - 20,000 Nepali girls aged 9 - 16 are brought into the big cities of India. Thailand pulls in girls from Laos, Burma and Cambodia. And Cambodia is reported to be pulling in girls from Vietnam!

There seems to be so many willing sellers of children, the price (or the "loan") is commensurately small. Nepali families are reported to receive but US$200 - US$600 per daughter, depending on her beauty.

See the excerpt on the right about a disappointed family in Thailand.

In comparison, what June Chandler got as gifts from Michael Jackson, to stay in denial (and go shopping in Monaco) was astronomical, and that's before factoring in the US$20 million legal settlement.

But the behaviour is the same. Parents, out of dire economic necessity or plain avarice, can overlook the most obvious danger signals and put their children at risk. Whether in the poorest village of Asia, or the richest city in America.

© Yawning Bread 

1. Another version from Court TV:

   "We're a family. Why won't you allow Jordie to be with me?" Jackson asked, according to Chandler. "I said, 'He is with you,' and he said, 'But in my bedroom. Jordie is having fun. Why can't he sleep in my bed? There's nothing going on. Why don't you trust me?'"

   Chandler said she relented, allowing her son to join Jackson in his room at the Mirage that night. Jackson rewarded her for her trust the next night with a gold Cartier bracelet.

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