Dancer Wade Robson’s child molestation against Michael Jackson’s estate has been dismissed by family court judge (and by Michael Jackson expert) Mitchell Beckloff in Los Angeles. The estate had asked the judge for summary judgment and dismissal most recently on the grounds that it was too late after the alleged incidents. The judge concurred. The estate also denied all claims.
Robson had testified in 2005 for Jackson in the child molestation case brought by the state of California over Gavin Arvizo. Robson, his mother and sister all testified that nothing untoward had happened with Jackson when Wade was staying overnight at Neverland.
But a couple of years ago Robson suddenly declared he’d had a nervous breakdown and remembered all kinds of things done to him by Jackson, who died in 2009. But some in the Jackson camp felt that Robson, a choreographer, was bitter about not being selected to work on posthumous projects by the estate.
Adding to this was a claim by Jimmy Safechuck, another kid who’d stayed at Neverland, and whose family had been doted on by Michael during those years. Safechuck also filed a suit. It’s unclear if that case was dismissed too.
Robson worked at one time for Michael’s MJJ Productions. Robson’s lawyer has indicted he’ll continue on this path, suing as a former employee. But it does seem the endless suits against the estate will end here.
I know the Jackson super fans have a lot of questions at this point. I think it’s instructive that with these filings, the only other people who turned up were previously discredited claimants from years ago. Also, back in that period of 2003-2005, I actually trailed around old leads from places like the National Enquirer, looking for kids who were said to have been molested by Jackson. Nothing ever panned out. They were all dead ends. If Jackson had really been a serial molester, some of those names would have turned up to back Robson and Safechuck. No one ever did.
In the end, Michael’s bad decisions- to let boys sleep over, to ignore how things “looked”– was what did him in. We’ll probably never know more than we do now about why he let things get so exaggerated.