Jordan Chandler - Friendship, Tape Recording, Allegations and Negotiations

Friendship, Tape Recording, Allegations and Negotiations

By the summer of 1993, it was revealed that Jackson allowed children to sleep over at his Neverland ranch, a fact which came under much media scrutiny when child sexual abuse allegations were brought against him. Jackson became firm friends with Jordan Chandler and his family after a meeting in May 1992, as he was a fan of Jackson. Their friendship became so close that the National Enquirer ran a featured story with the title "Michael's New Adopted Family", which implied that Jackson had "stolen" the boy from his estranged father, Evan Chandler, a dentist, who was admittedly jealous over Jackson's influence on his son. According to celebrity biographer, J. Randy Taraborrelli, Chandler asked, "Look, are you having sex with my son?" and after Jackson denied doing so, Chandler's opinion of Jackson changed. Jackson invited Jordan, his stepsister and his mother to visit Neverland on the weekends and they would also take trips to Las Vegas and Florida. These weekend trips began to interfere with Jordan's scheduled visits with his father, with Jordan preferring to visit Neverland. In May 1993, when Jackson and Jordan stayed with Chandler, he urged Jackson to spend more time with his son at his house and even suggested that Jackson build an addition onto the house so that Jackson could stay there. After the zoning department told Chandler it could not be done, he suggested that Jackson just build him a new home. That same month, Jordan and June flew with Jackson to Monaco for the World Music Awards. According to June's lawyer, Michael Freeman, “Evan began to get jealous of the involvement and felt left out.” Upon their return, Chandler was pleased with a five-day visit from Jackson, during which Jackson slept in a room with Jordan and his stepbrother. Chandler claimed this was when his suspicions of sexual misconduct by Jackson began, although he admitted that Jackson and Jordan always had their clothes on when he saw them in bed together and has never claimed to have witnessed any sexual misconduct between the two.

On July 2, 1993, in a private telephone conversation, Chandler was tape-recorded as saying,

There was no reason why he (Jackson) had to stop calling me ... I picked the nastiest son of a bitch I could find, all he wants to do is get this out in the public as fast as he can, as big as he can and humiliate as many people as he can. He's nasty, he's mean, he's smart and he's hungry for publicity. Everything's going to a certain plan that isn't just mine. Once I make that phone call, this guy is going to destroy everybody in sight in any devious, nasty, cruel way that he can do it. I've given him full authority to do that. Jackson is an evil guy, he is worse than that and I have the evidence to prove it. If I go through with this, I win big-time. There's no way I lose. I will get everything I want and they will be destroyed forever ... Michael's career will be over.

In the same conversation, when asked how this would affect his son, Chandler replied,

That's irrelevant to me ... It will be a massacre if I don't get what I want. It's going to be bigger than all us put together ... This man is going to be humiliated beyond belief ... He will not sell one more record.

The recorded conversation was a critical aspect of Jackson's defense against the upcoming allegation made against him. He and his supporters argue that he was the victim of a jealous father whose only goal was to extort money from the singer. In October 1994, Mary A. Fischer of GQ magazine reported it was Evan Chandler who initially accused Jackson of molesting his son, before he demanded a screenwriting deal from Jackson instead of going to the police.

According to Taraborrelli, Chandler was forced to admit the controversial sedative sodium amytal was used when he extracted a tooth from Jordan in early August. On May 3, 1994, KCBS-TV news reported that Chandler claimed the drug was used for tooth extraction and that the allegations came out while Jordan was under the influence of the drug. Mark Torbiner, the dental anesthesiologist who administered the drug, told GQ if sodium amytal was used, "it was for dental purposes." Sodium amytal is a barbiturate that puts people in a hypnotic state when injected intravenously. Studies done in 1952 debunked the drug as a truth serum and demonstrated it enabled false memories to be easily implanted.

Dr. Phillip Resnick, a noted Cleveland psychiatrist said it was a "a psychiatric medication" and "People will say things under sodium amytal that are blatantly untrue." In mid-May 1994 in Napa County, California, Gary Ramona won his lawsuit against his daughter's therapist and the psychiatrist who had given her sodium amytal. The psychiatrist claimed the drug helped Ramona's daughter remember specific details of sexual molestation by Ramona, but a court brief written by Martin Orne, a University of Pennsylvania psychiatrist who pioneered research of hypnosis and sodium amytal, stated that the drug is "not useful in ascertaining 'truth' . . . The patient becomes sensitive and receptive to suggestions due to the context and to the comments of the interviewers." This was the first successful legal challenge to the “repressed memory phenomenon". Dr. Kenneth Gottlieb, a San Francisco psychiatrist said, “It’s absolutely a psychiatric drug...I would never want to use a drug that tampers with a person’s unconscious unless there was no other drug available. And I would not use it without resuscitating equipment, in case of allergic reaction, and only with an M.D. anesthesiologist present.” According to Dr. John Yagiela, coordinator of the anesthesia and pain control department of UCLA’s school of dentistry, “It’s unusual for it to be used " and "better, safer alternatives are available."

According to Diane Dimond of Hard Copy, Torbiner's records show that Robinul and Vistarol was administered instead of sodium amytal. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration was investigating Torbiner's administration of drugs in house calls, where he mostly gave patients morphine and Demerol. His credentials with the Board of Dental Examiners indicated that he was restricted by law to administering drugs solely for dental-related procedures, but he had not adhered to those restrictions. For instance, he had given general anesthetic to Barry Rothman during hair-transplant procedures. Torbiner had introduced Chandler and Rothman in 1991, when Rothman needed dental work.

Over the next couple of months both parties engaged in unsuccessful (out of court) financial negotiations, with Chandler and his legal team asking for $20 million, or the issue would be taken to criminal court. Jackson declined the offer, saying, "No way in Hell". A few weeks later, Jackson's legal team gave a counter-offer to the value of $1 million, which was declined by Chandler. The father then lowered his request to $15 million; Jackson rejected this and lowered his original counter-offer to $350,000. With both sides unable to reach an agreement, Chandler decided he would take it to court. Chandler then took his son to see a psychiatrist called Dr. Mathis Abrams, and during the three-hour session with the doctor, Jordan Chandler said he had had a sexual relationship with Jackson that went on for several months, and which included incidents of kissing, masturbation and oral sex. He then repeated these allegations to police and gave a detailed description of what he alleged was Jackson's penis.