Jordan Chandler - Aftermath

Aftermath

Three years later, Jordan Chandler's alleged account of the relationship was detailed in a book by journalist Victor M. Gutierrez. The book was said to be based on a diary the boy had kept at the time and included details of alleged sexual encounters between Jackson and him. In 1995, Jackson filed a civil suit against Gutierrez for slander; the jury found in Jackson's favor, awarding him $2.7 million in damages. In 1996, Evan Chandler sued Jackson for around $60 million, claiming Jackson had breached an agreement never to discuss the case. In 1999, a court ruled in Jackson's favor and threw out the lawsuit.

But the 1993 case would be revisited again with the 2003 allegations. There was more than a year between Jackson's 2003 arrest and the beginning of his trial and he was prevented by a gag order from responding to any stories in the media. As in 1993, prosecution sympathizers leaked documents e.g. Jordan Chandler's 1993 police statement. The media was again eager to report on the allegations, with a tendency for sensationalism. And allegations sold to tabloid TV shows by disgruntled ex-employees in the 1990s were constantly in the news again. Also similar to 1993, details of the Arvizo family's 2003 allegations were leaked. These stories were mostly reported as allegations rather than facts, but the volume and frequency of stories, combined with Jackson's inability to refute them, had a devastating impact on public opinion of him.

In a 2005 lecture at Harvard after Jackson's trial, Jackson's attorney Thomas Mesereau said the following about Jordan Chandler: "The prosecutors tried to get him to show up and he wouldn't. If he had, I had witnesses who were going to come in and say he told them it never happened and that he would never talk to his parents again for what they made him say. It turned out he'd gone into court and got legal emancipation from his parents." In 2006, Jordan accused Evan of attacking him with a barbell, choking him and spraying his face with Mace. The charges were later dropped. On November 5, 2009, Evan Chandler was found dead following an apparent suicide.

Music journalist Charles Thomson noted a continued media bias against Jackson after the Chandler suicide. Thomson said he was contacted by a British tabloid to supply information about the 1993 allegations, only to have them replace his carefully researched information with the common myths he advised them to avoid and that the same misinformation was in every article he read about the suicide. He noted when Jackson's FBI file was released the following month, the contents were portrayed by the media as giving an impression of guilt even though the file strongly supported his innocence. He noted how Gene Simmons' allegations in 2010 about Jackson molesting children received over a hundred times more coverage than his interview with Jackson's long-time guitarist, Jennifer Batten, who rebutted Simmon's claims.