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Statement Responding to Search of Neverland

Michael’s Team Statement on CNN

We cannot comment on law enforcement's investigation because we do not yet know what it is about.

We can comment on the malignant horde of media hounds claiming to speak for Michael on this and many other issues. A rogue's gallery of hucksters and self-styled "inside sources" have dominated the airwaves since reports of a search of Neverland broke, speculating, guessing and fabricating information about an investigation they couldn't possibly know about.

Michael himself said, "I've seen lawyers who do not represent me and spokespeople who do not know me speaking for me. These characters always seem to surface with a dreadful allegation just as another project, an album, a video, is being released."

Michael will, as always, cooperate fully with authorities in any investigation even as it is conducted, yet again, while he is not home.

Charles Thompson, freelance writer

At roughly 8.30 that morning Stuart Backerman and Jackson cohort Marc Schaffel spoke on the telephone to discuss their departure for Europe the following day. Their conversation was interrupted by an incoming telephone call for Schaffel from Joe Marcus, a security coordinator at Neverland. “It was a weird hour for Joe to be calling,” says Backerman, “so Schaffel said he would call me back.”

A short while later Backerman’s telephone rang. “You gotta turn on the television,” said Schaffel. Backerman switched on his TV and saw the now famous helicopter images of police swarming Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch. Led by District Attorney Tom Sneddon, 70 sheriffs from the Santa Barbara Police Department had been dispatched to raid Michael Jackson’s home. “Honestly,” Backerman recalls, “You would have thought it was an army battalion going into an Iraqi village. There were so many of them.”

His heart sank. “At that moment I realized that the European trip and the whole MJ Universe project was finished because by that point Diane Dimond was on, revealing that it was all over a second charge of child molestation.

“Michael was just getting ready to leave the 1993 allegations behind and rebrand himself. We’d just finished dealing with the Martin Bashir scandal and here it was again.” He sighs. “Here it was again.”

In Las Vegas, it fell on manager Dieter Wiesner to break the news to Michael Jackson. “Michael was still in his room,” Wiesner explains. “He was sitting next to the fireplace when I came in and he was very quiet. I had to tell him and it was not easy to tell Michael things like this because he was in such a good mood. He saw a future. When the Bashir situation arose he was very down. Now everything had changed and Michael was ready to do new things. Then, to go to his room and tell him such a bad situation… it was a disaster.

“I told him, ‘Michael, there is bad news but on the other side you have to see it as also good news. The bad news is the police are on the ranch.’ Michael was completely shocked. I was sitting next to him; I had my arm on his shoulder.

“He looked at me and he was really... You could see the blood going out of his face. He was deeply shocked. But I told him, ‘Michael, now you have the chance finally to clear up everything. Once and forever you can clear up everything.’”

News spread quickly amongst the crew. “I saw it on TV that morning and by the time I got to the hotel lobby, everybody else had already found out,” says a crew member. “So we went to work as normal and waited to see what was going to happen.

“Of course, when we got to the soundstage it was a complete zoo with paparazzi and fans. It had leaked where we were shooting. The day before, nobody knew we were shooting or anything.

“We waited that entire day for Michael to come and I think we went back a second day. Then he called finally and said, ‘I’m just not going to be able to come’.”

Jackson spent much of those two days crying, says Dieter Wiesner. “I was sitting with him day and night. He was shocked; he was crying… he didn’t know what to do. It was such a bad situation. We were supposed to go to Europe. He was ready to move on in his life and everything was prepared. It was just a beautiful situation and this news shocked him deeply. Really, it killed him.”