Geraldine Hughes: A Witness to the Extortion of Michael Jackson?

People often question the validity of Jordan Chandler’s accusations because of the settlement. Geraldine Hughes, the former legal secretary to Attorney Barry Rothman (Evan Chandler’s lawyer during the 1993 allegations against Michael Jackson), explains that settlement is the most desirable way of handling any kind of dispute in the U.S.

According to Hughes, the court requires mandatory settlement conferences. They’ll set a trial date, but before that trial date hits, the parties must come together and try and settle, in order to keep the case out of court. This is because there are not enough judges or resources to handle every dispute or claim through the court system. “So they try and settle it. If they can’t settle it, they’ll mandatorily send it for arbitration, send it for mediation, anything, but let’s keep this out of court”.

Geraldine Hughes is the author of Redemption: The Truth Behind the Michael Jackson Child Molestation Allegations. Here, Deborah L. Kunesh interviews Hughes on her book, her experiences working for Rothman, and her belief that the 1993 molestation case was about extortion:

DK: Deborah Kunesh
GH: Geraldine Hughes

DK: You were the legal secretary for the accuser’s father in the 1993 allegations, correct?

GH: Right.

DK: How did you come to work for him? How long had you been working for him?

GH: Not long actually. I had only worked for him for total time of about maybe 8 months, but I was with him 2 months before the allegations.

DK: Barry Rothman, he had a fairly bad reputation for being pretty mean?

GH: To call him mean would be a compliment (laughter). He just really had a horrible demeanor, personality, just his whole everything. His presence, how he treats people. He just really had a bad character.

DK: When you started working for him, did it take you long to notice that?

GH: I noticed it kind of instantly. We had a receptionist and it was like he needed someone to badger on a daily basis and he used to beat up on her pretty badly on a daily basis. He kind of left me alone because he couldn’t afford for me to just up and walk out on him. He could lose a receptionist.

DK: That had to be hard to work for someone like that.

GH: I became friends with the receptionist and part of the reason I hung in there was to keep her encouraged. Under normal circumstances, I would have bailed out from that environment long past.

DK: It’s good in a way that you didn’t though because of what you were able to witness. You actually witnessed the extortion? What did you see and hear?

GH: Well, they started out negotiating. When I say they, Chandler, Evan Chandler, and Barry Rothman who was representing him, they started out negotiating with Michael’s representative, who was Anthony Pellicano, who was the private investigator. What they did was they went to him, he (Evan Chandler) wanted him to fund a $20 million movie deal, he wanted to make another movie and he needed the money for it, so he first went to Michael’s team, not saying anything about, you know, seeing him molesting his child. He went to him asking for a $20 million movie deal, for him (Michael) to fund it and he had a hypothetical letter that he obtained from a psychiatrist saying well, you know, “my son is hanging out with this male guy and they’re doing sleepovers and, what do you think? You think something wrong is going on?” (The psychiatrist) sent a letter back telling him that minus talking to the boy, he can’t say conclusively, and “just hypothetically speaking, I would have a concern about impropriety,” that was it. So he (Evan Chandler) took that hypothetical letter that he got from the doctor after posing a hypothetical question and he used that letter as a bargaining tool to Michael’s team that if he (Michael) didn’t pay the money, that they were going to use that letter to ruin him.

DK: You don’t agree that Evan Chandler gave his son a truth serum and then Jordy Chandler admitted molestation?

GH: No, I think that’s their story on how they found out. I really believe that the whole thing was plotted and planned and the words were given to him to say because I actually witnessed the 13 year old in my attorney’s office without any supervision of his parents and he was kind of snuck in there, it was like no one in the office knew he was in there. He was behind closed doors with my attorney for several hours, and I kind of believe that is where he was being told what to say. I can’t say that I actually witnessed him being told, but I did witness that there was a meeting between my attorney and the 13 year old accuser for several hours. Actually it was a meeting that nobody in the office was supposed to know even existed and the only reason that I found out (was because) I was on my way out of the office and we were under threats of death about just walking in his office without even knocking or without announcing, and I was just rushing so I opened up the door and when I opened up the door I saw the boy in his office and I was kind of shocked. We didn’t even know he was in there and he had a startled look on his face and the attorney blasted me for coming in there unannounced.

DK: Soul Patrol.com chat. You dispute the sodium amytal theory….you said that you were the only one because you saw something entirely different take place and by that you are meaning what you witnessed as far as this plan coming into place?

GH: It’s just that their whole technique, their whole thing was planned. Even the plan was planned. All the issues were planned. Then when the father in the conversation, he said, “We’re moving according to a plan.” He said it wasn’t his plan, but he said “We’re moving according to a plan. It’s not mine, but I’ve hired someone that’s mean, devious, nasty to move against Michael and he’s just waiting on my phone call.” So, he put it like that. So, you know their whole MO was to make it look like something that it wasn’t. They made it look like they just happened to take the boy to the psychiatrist and that’s where he got the information, the psychiatrist got the information. Then I’m hearing the sodium thing, so I said, first you said the psychiatrist is the one that got the information and then now you’re saying, the father put him under a truth serum and I’m like, which one is it?

DK: When he meant he hired someone, he meant Barry Rothman?

GH: Oh, absolutely.

DK: Michael’s insurance company paid the settlement, not Michael himself?

GH: Right. They paid it not on negligence, they paid on there being a liability. They didn’t pay on negligence, because insurance companies will not pay on negligence. The fact that they paid the settlement, shows that he wasn’t negligent. If he was negligent…it’s just like if you get into a car accident. If you were the negligent party, they won’t pay. At least you won’t get anything out of it. You’ve got the insurance to cover the other person. But you can’t collect from an insurance company based on negligence.

DK: What does it mean that they paid on a liability?

GH: Just like if you go to a mall, you said you slipped and fell, and then you went to the doctor. Now, we don’t know if you really did or not, but there’s a liability in that you got a doctor, you got charges, it’s like you’re claiming you’ve created a situation, it hasn’t been proven, so therefore, they’ll pay it. You’re going to court to prove it. So the insurance company is like, :look, rather than pay all of this money on court costs, we’ll negotiate a settlement based on there being a liability.” It doesn’t get proven unless you go to court. But they’re not willing to pay the money to go to court. They’re just saying, “well, look, you’ve created a situation, you’ve made a claim, let’s settle this thing, let’s negotiate for a settlement amount. We’re not saying right or wrong, good or bad, we just want to get rid of this.”

DK: Thank you for explaining that, that makes more sense to me now.

GH: Settlement is the most desirable way of handling any kind of dispute. They would rather… the court requires mandatory settlement conferences. They’ll give you a trial date, but before that trial date hits, they make sure that these parties come together, negotiate, try and settle this thing, try and keep this thing out of court. That is mandatory. Oh absolutely. They don’t have enough judges. They don’t have enough man dollars to handle every dispute or claim that comes knocking at their door. So they try and settle it. If they can’t settle it, they’ll mandatorily send it for arbitration, send it for mediation, anything, but let’s keep this out of court.

DK: You had come forth to investigators with your information in 1993?

GH: Yes, Anthony Pellicano. That was Michael Jackson’s private investigator.

DK: When you found out what was going on, then you went to Mr. Pellicano?

GH: Yes. That was at the very onset. I think my meetings with Pellicano, it wasn’t longer than 2 weeks after the story broke that they were alleging child molestation for Michael the first time.

DK: You had witnessed Jordy Chandler coming in to your office and then the tape, that recorded phone conversation, etc. Do you know how long after that that these charges were brought against Michael?

GH: They launched the charges against Michael on the date that they had an Ex Parte hearing. They had a hearing, the father took the custody of the boy from his mom and it was during this time that I believe that all of the planning was going on, when I saw him in the office, negotiating with Michael, and he had the boy in his custody. Well, it was without the mother’s approval and permission because he was supposed to return him back to the Mom. So the mother filed an emergency custody hearing, an OSC (Order to Show Cause). We call it an Ex Parte hearing for custody, regarding custody, and Ex Parte means that you have to show up in court the very next day. You only get a one day notice on that. The real damaging piece of information against the Chandlers is that they went to court, in front of the judge (at this hearing, with no mention of child molestation concerns). They had been negotiating with Michael for a month, trying to get money out of him, claiming to use the allegation of impropriety as their leverage, but then they go to court before a judge on the issue of custody and they didn’t say 2 words to the judge that there was a concern about the boy’s welfare, about him being molested, about any inprorietary. They didn’t say anything that there was a concern or any problem in that regard. The judge ordered that he return Jordy back to his mom.
Now, I’m in the office like, “Lord, what are they going to do next?” I was thinking, ha, she won. They’ve got to return the boy. Well, that’s the day they launched the allegation of child molestation. On the same day that they were ordered to return the boy back to the mother. On the same day!

DK: Yet, they didn’t mention any of this in the court?

GH: Didn’t mention it in the court. Because if they had, the judge would have ordered an investigation. When you really think about it, that’s the proper forum. If you’re going through a custody situation, that’s where you express your concerns about the welfare of a child. But they went to court, they didn’t say two words. The way I explained it in the book, well first of all, she threw them with a curve ball with that hearing. That wasn’t their plan. They didn’t know how to deal with it and they only had one day to show up in court. They didn’t have time to (alter their plan). They just had to show up and they were just at the mercy of the court pretty much. and when they saw that the court ordered to return the boy, they decided, let’s go on and launch the plan because without the boy’s custody, they could not really do this thing, or sending him back to the mom, whatever they did, she could have undone it. He could have confided in the mom and they didn’t want that. At that point, they could not afford to send him back into her custody. They had done too much.

DK: With their plan?

GH: With their plan, absolutely. That’s why I’m saying that that truth serum, that doesn’t jive, because everything that they were doing was part of a plan. It was already mapped out, it was planned out. They even mapped out the part about how it was going to be reported. If he gave him a truth serum and according to him, that’s how he found out, all he had to do at that point is dial 911. The way they plotted it was that he was supposed to go talk to a psychiatrist and that’s where he would tell the psychiatrist the different things that he told him, and the psychiatrist would be the one that reported it because he’s a credible cohort. He’s somebody that nobody is going to question and he’s a mandated reporter.

I typed the letter to the father where the attorney was telling him how to report it using a third party. I remember typing the short letter. He typed him a letter and he sent him some information on child molestation being reported through a psychiatrist, so he was informing the father how to go about it and that was his plan. So he was literally just making him feel comfortable, making him so he felt okay with it, giving him some articles, we sent him some newspapers, something we sent along with it. But I remember when I typed that letter, I said, “Why are you writing him telling him? I said if anybody has got a suspicion of child molestation, all he has to do is pick up the telephone. You don’t have to plot and plan and take him to a psychiatrist because nobody else has the credibility to report it.”

DK: You said this to Barry Rothman or you were just thinking it?

GH: Oh, of course not. I would have been out that day and I wouldn’t have been able to get the rest of the story.

DK: That’s true. So you had all of this going through your mind, so you were thinking at this time, something isn’t right about this situation?

GH: With the letter that I typed, that was another red flag to let me know something was really wrong.

DK: It’s as if God placed you there in order to be a witness to it.

GH: Absolutely.

DK: What about the taped phone conversation between Evan Chandler and someone else? Who was he speaking with on the tape?

GH: Right. Now it was a conversation between Evan Chandler and the boy’s stepdad and the reason he (the stepdad) tape recorded the conversation was because he had talked with (Evan Chandler) previously where (Evan) had threatened to do bodily harm or he had threatened to harm, so he wanted to just tape the conversation in case he needed to use anything later on that he did. Chandler did not know he was being tape recorded, but he was basically admitting in that conversation. He said he couldn’t understand why Michael was kind of like pulling away from him and he said, and one thing he said was, if I go through with this plan, I’m going to win big time and then he said, “I’ve hired someone who’s mean, who’s nasty, who’s devious, ready to move against him, he’s waiting on my call, but if I go through with this plan, I’m going to ruin Michael Jackson, I’m going to ruin him and I’m going to win big. That’s what he said.
They aired that tape. Pellicano got a hold of it and gave it to a news person and they aired it. They literally aired it. Why wasn’t people listening when they heard that conversation? That was him admitting that he was getting ready to do something, that he was moving according to a certain plan. He said nothing about his child being molested. He just simply said, if I go through with this, I’m going to win big and I’m going to ruin Michael Jackson.

DK: You can hear in the tapes, there was a definite plan. It didn’t sound like a father who was trying to protect his child. It sounded like someone that wanted to go after someone.

GHL Right.

DK: The sad part is that it ended up setting up a whole…it did in some ways, end up ruining him.

GH: It did a lot of damage.

DK: I’ve noticed people’s reactions, even to this day. I don’t know if you get that, if you talk about it, but there are some people’s reactions to Michael Jackson who still believe he was guilty of all of these things.

GHL Right, Right.

DK: It’s come across to me, in all of the research I’ve done so far, that he was so much different from what the media made him out to be.

GH: Like they tried to make him into a sinister, and the sad part, he was totally, everything he said was true. He said “I would never hurt a child. He said “I would rather slit my wrists than to ever hurt a child” and his whole life was centered around children, and then that they would take the one thing that he loved the most and turn it against him? And then come after him in an area where he’s been helping children all over the world forever? That’s all he’s been doing, and to use that one child, who made that one accusation. I said it in the book. “How did we forget the Michael that’s been helping people, that’s been helping hurting kids, you know, kids on their dying bed?” His manager couldn’t even understand how he could have kids come to the ranch who were literally on their dying bed and Michael said, “this is my purpose in life. This is what God created me to do. To bring joy and happiness.” Come on, that is not the heart of a sinister who would molest. It’s the sinister that would think he would do (that). That can accuse him of it.

DK: Exactly. Right. Believe it or not, I was kicked off several Christian forums. People were being very judgemental in there. The research I’ve done and the quotes from him, seem very opposite from what these people are claiming and I needed to say something. I put a couple of quotes from him, told them a little about what I was doing and what I was researching and believe it or not, I got an e-mail telling me I was banned from that community, and they would not tell me what I did wrong. It was pretty disheartening.

GH: See, those are the ones that crucified him….The spirit of the Pharisees is still alive and kicking. That’s why I look at people. I’m a missionary, and everybody in the Christian community that knows me knows that I’m a missionary and that I’ve been doing God’s work for a long time, but I take this project, and I look at it as a mission too. It’s a part that I rationally, you see, I wrote the book, it’s very spiritually written, and I say in the book, I say a lot. I say that God’s hand is on Michael, is on his life, is on what he’s done, so therefore, when God has his hand on you and you fall into danger, God does not leave you there without a witness. He doesn’t leave you. He gave Michael Jackson a witness, and I witnessed, and I mean, while I was sitting there in that office, it was my inner sense that was kind of guiding me because I knew something was wrong long before I knew exactly what was going on, something on the inside was telling me that something was wrong.

I just started, it was one lady attorney, and he (Barry Rothman) was mean to all females, even the lady attorney, so she needed someone to talk to and I actually found out, a lot of my information I found out, came from her. I started asking questions. She was there when I was typing the document and I saw Michael’s name. I saw Michael Jackson and I later asked her, is this “the” Michael Jackson and she told me yes and I said, okay, my next question will be tomorrow. So she kind of really was the one who gave me a lot of the inside information that I obtained.

DK: Did you become a missionary after you left the legal field?

GH: I’ve been an aspiring missionary for a while. I started doing what I call missions from God in ’85 when I took in kids where the mom had died. Near ’93, I was at the Church on the Way where I was doing a lot of missionary training. I was taking classes, I was in the King’s College, so during that time I was still pretty much aspiring. I think at that time I was working doing different mission things. Once a year we always did an annual missionary thing, but I term myself as an urban missionary. I was the one who stayed local. Stayed in town. Went to places like skid row. I was a full-time watch missionary and now I’m actually back to being a full-time missionary again.

DK: That’s great.

GH: Truly, I’m glad. I’m honored to be. A lot of missionaries are bi-vocational, which I’ve been most of my life, where you work, you go to work and you use your vacation time and your weekend time to do your missionary work. But my inspiration was to always be a full-time missionary.

DK: So you stayed in your area and do your mission work?

GH: Right now I have a skid row ministry that I do 3 nights a week and just literally bring a church on the sidewalk for the people that live on the streets, temporary housing, the homeless in downtown Los Angeles.

DK: So, how and when did you first get the idea to write a book about your experiences?

GH: When I first got the idea to write the book, I wanted to let the family know, so I wrote a letter and I went to take it to them, to their Encino home, and I could not find the address, so on my way, I just said, “God, this is your project. If this is what you want me to do, you make it possible for me to give this letter to the family. Right after I just said that little quick prayer, I’m driving down the street that they lived on and I see a black Mercedes coming down and there’s a lady in the car that looks to me like the Mom, and sure enough it was Katherine Jackson and I know I must have tripped her out when I pulled up alongside of her and I said, “I know you think I’m crazy,” but I had a letter already addressed to her and her husband and I said “Please read this letter. I’m writing a book and I just want to make sure it’s okay with the family.” I gave her the letter.

Now, I didn’t find a publisher at that time. That was just with the idea of writing in ’97. I didn’t actually get the publisher until 2003 and so we put the press release out in November in 2003 and that was the same month that they were coming against Michael with the second allegations, so it was like we both hit in the same month. They thought they were coming forward to say “Ah, he did it again,” but I was coming forward at the same time saying “hah, he didn’t do it the first time!” I was the one they had out there countering all of the allegations of child molestation. I was one of maybe 3 or 4. I know Mom came out, Jermaine Jackson was one and Firpo Carr was another. It was three of us that were basically in the media defending Michael and his innocence, and they stopped everybody else but they never stopped me. They told Jermaine to stop, they told Firpo to stop speaking in the media about Michael. Noone ever contacted me.

As a matter of fact, my second interview was with a reporter with CBS or NBC and while we were talking before we did our interview, she told me that she knew the family. Well, the only thing that was holding up my book from being pressed and released was that I still had not received permission to use the photo of Michael on the cover. That picture that I have on the cover,was given to me by Anthony Pellicano when I came forward on the onset of the first allegations and told him what I knew. He was so grateful, he had a beautiful autographed picture of Michael hanging on his wall. He took it off his wall and gave it to me. When I got the idea to write the book and started thinking, what should I do for a cover, and then I thought about that picture and I said, “that man gave me the book cover,” and I said I was not going to put that book out without it.

I had tried for a couple of years to get permission and no one was getting back to me. So when she told me that she knew the family, I said, “will you tell them, the only hold up on the book is that I still don’t have permission to use the photograph.” Two days after talking to her, Joe Jackson called my publisher and said, “Tell Ms. Hughes she’s got our permission to use the photograph.” And then he told her, he said, “and here, give her this number and give us a call.”

So when I called, it was the most… I’ll never forget that day. It was the most amazing day. When I called it was Joe Jackson and then he said, “Hold on for a minute. I want to put you on the speaker phone so my wife Katherine can hear you,” and I said “Oh Lord, I’m not ready for this” Then when I talked to them, I found out, I said, “Who gave the permission?” and they said, when they found out that I was looking for the permission, they said they called Michael and told Michael, the lady that is writing the book, she wants permission to use the photo and Michael said, “Well of course. Give her permission!” I later found out that Michael was the one that actually gave the permission and they called him and then when I had a chance to sit down and talk with Katherine and Joe, I asked her, I said “Ms. Jackson, do you remember me giving you that letter, that day I ran into you?” and she told me she remembered it. She said that she told Michael about it but at that time he really couldn’t do anything and that they couldn’t co-participate with me, so that’s why they didn’t have any response or anything. I wasn’t looking for that, I was just looking to let them know, but yeah, that was how the whole thing came about where I received permission to use the photo.

Joe Jackson has been my biggest supporter ever since releasing the book. Every time he goes out of town he takes my book with him. I start getting calls from people from Germany, Canada, from Japan, I have a lady now that is looking to bring the book into Japan, and Joe Jackson has been my biggest supporter ever since. The whole family. As a matter of a fact, we did one press conference where he wanted everybody to know that the whole family was supporting me and the book. So that was good.

DK: Your Mom was also an important part of this book. How so?

GH: My mom was the one that contacted Anthony Pellicano and scheduled my appointment with him. She was the one privy to all details of the case. Mom was glued to the TV and knew who all the people were. I was busy at work and seldom watch TV She knew who to contact. She encouraged me to continue the book, even when I had to put it down to go into the mission field. She said “give it to me, I’ll finish it.” My mom did not work on the book, but when she saw that I was putting it aside to go into the mission field, she was willing to do whatever it took to get the book out. Even overstep me, the author. After losing my mother, I then had the desire to finish the book and the courage I needed. My mom passed away in September of 2002 and I started the final edit of the book in Jan of 2003, started looking for a publisher once again in March 2003, found a publisher in June of 2003, sent out press release in Nov of 2003, book released in Jan 2004.

DK: You did all the major talk shows at the time I had read?

GH: Yeah, I did. They had me on all the major networks. I did Bill O’Reilly, msnbc, abc, cbs. We did several press conferences where all the media was present and (we) did a lot of radio. I had people coming over from Germany, from Canada. I did documentaries about the book. It was a lot of media. It was more than I bargained for and it caught me off guard because the book wasn’t even released. Just the press release had gone out. It was a lot. The book came out, we released it at the end of January, 2004.

DK: So this corresponded during a time when the 2nd allegations came out….so there was an even heightened interest in it?

GH: Yes, the second allegations. My press release came out in Nov. 03, which was the same month that they announced the second allegations against Michael. It was almost simulataneous. Just that whole timing thing was a God thing, you know, because God’s timing is so perfect and it hit the same month. They thought they were coming out with, oh, he did it again. But by me coming out with the book it was like, “no, he didn’t do it the first time!” They wasn’t bargaining on that. But at the same time, we didn’t know that they were coming after him the second time, so that put that, maybe minus that second allegation, the awareness or the interest might not have been there as it was at that time, but it was at a very high level. Any information anybody had about Michael at that time was just completely valuable and newsworthy.

DK: How did the media react to what you had to say? Was it positive or negative?

GH: I kind of felt that they were sweeping it under the table because I did really good interviews that really answered questions that people had not answered and didn’t have answers to prior, and then when the interview aired, the real important stuff was swept under the rug and it was like, “oh, this is the author of the book and hoo hoo, and Geraldine Hughes and she professes to whatever,” but they didn’t really divulge the pertinent facts that I had given them. It was only a little snippet and I said “how does somebody come forward and say that this is what really happened in a case like this and you sweep it under the rug?” Well, because the news of him being a child molester was the higher ranking. It was rated higher, it brought higher ratings. So they were doing the thing that was (more lucrative). Any little bit of information that would point to him being a child molester, they ran rankid with it.

DK: I’m part of the media, being a journalist, but I’ve never agreed with some of the practices. I’ve never agreed with how the media takes a story and runs with it and they don’t have the facts, the facts are sensationalized many times. That definitely happened in this situation and that’s a shame because you had all of this great first-hand information and the public really didn’t get to hear the truth. Which might have changed the outcome.

GH: That’s right. I tip my hand to Michael Jackson’s fans. When the fans got word of it, they kind of knew, it was kind of out there that I was coming forward with the book, it took a few years to finally actually do it, they knew it was coming, but when I finally came forward with it, it was like the most incredible outpour of support, of loyalty. Even right now, with Michael’s passing, the fans are promoting the book all over the world, and supporting the book. Michael’s got an incredible fan base and they put their love for him into action. They’re not just saying, “oh, we love you.” No, no, no. They are organized, they are of one accord, they are on Michael’s side, and anything that is for him, they are for. I mean, we even had a problem with my book retailers, We had a major distributor, that distributes to major retailers, even one of our retailers, which was Barnes & Noble, had vowed that they were not going to carry the book, and when the fans found out about it, they started emailing and threatening to boycott and those books started winding up in the stores. I got a lot of support. Still have a lot of support. They vow to support just about anything. My second book that I didn’t get published at that time, but I’ve got a publisher that’s looking to publish it now, (Michaelgate), they’re giving their undying support for that. They trust what I do because they know that I didn’t have no motives other than just telling the truth. Coming forward and telling the truth.

DK: “Michaelgate, The Conspiracy Theories”, your next book….you have a publisher now that you’re working with?

GH: I have a publisher now that is us very much entertaining (it), I’m adding one last chapter, and that’s the conspiracy theories surrounding his death. I’m adding that and as soon as I’ve finished adding the last chapter, then they’re interested in publishing it.

During the time I was going through all of this, Michael’s fans, they had websites that they developed and designed. I literally, the only thing that they allowed me to do, was book signings. Everything else….There was somebody else….somebody was handling my travel, somebody was paying for my….it was just the most incredible experience I have ever endured ever in life was to see the love that his fans have for him that they will support anybody that is supporting him.

DK: It’s nice to see that and it still seems to be the case.

GH: Absolutely. Even more so now. Oh my God. It’s even more so now. I’ve just got so much love being poured in my direction. Even what you’re doing. You know you’re doing it too. These are professional people. Attorneys and doctors, that are fans of his. The people that love him and draw support and are dedicated to him, they’re beautiful people just like Michael Jackson. The most beautiful people I’ve met in life! It’s incredible! I’m like, Lord, what is this?

DK: That’s kind of cool and I like that you said that. I think that is true. I think there is a misconception out there in some circles about Michael’s fans.

GH: Doctors, lawyers I’m talking to. That are stepping up and saying, “Anything I can do to clear his name. Publishers, agents, oh my gosh. Religions. A lot of religious people. When I first released “Redemption”, I had a lot of pastors that came forward to support my effort. Pastors, evangelists. The part that is kind of scary, most of them are Christians, but a lot of them are like really high up on the totem pole of Christians and evangelists. Now I say, all these people with all of these spiritual gifts cannot be all wrong. Now come on. Because we’ve got insights, we’ve got a little extra something we working with. So we can’t all be wrong now. The only ones in the Christian community that criticizes him and may be judgemental of him, they’re in the flesh, but the people I have met, they are pastors of churches. This lady she got in touch with me through my publisher. She said that about a year before the allegation came down about Michael, she said that the Lord told her to start her congregation to start praying for Michael Jackson. Then the allegations hits a year later and then she was figuring, “maybe our prayers didn’t work.” Then she found out about me and the book, and then she said, “no, the prayers did work.” She had a whole church. She supported me wholeheartedly. Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson. Just really an outpour of love of people that are supporting him.

DK: That’s great. There’s the interview that Michael did with Jesse Jackson during the 2005 trial.

GH: I called Jesse and told him “you need to contact Michael.” I was the one that put him on the trail because that’s when he was showing up in court late and coming in with the pajamas and he looked like he needed some help. Like he needed help. I called Jesse and Jesse said if he can get past the attorney and get to Michael and the very next day or two I heard that Jesse was on the scene and I said “great!”

DK: I’ve loved all of the interviews I’ve listened to and read, but that was a really good interview with him, the one with Jesse Jackson. He really brought out who Michael was. I know you had mentioned that you had done interviews with Joe and Katherine and I thought I had read also, Jermaine?

GH: I did a press conference with Joe Jackson and the purpose of that, he wanted everybody to know that the entire family was behind me in supporting the book. Then me and Jermaine did, I think we did Dan Abrahms, we did MSNBC, me and Jermaine did an interview together on that show. That was incredible. Being on the set with Jermaine. He wanted the limousine to take me home first, so we went to my house to drop me off. Of course I couldn’t just get out of the car. I had to say “would you like to come in Jermaine?” and he came and said “hi” to everybody. I told him at that time, while we were riding, I told him I was a missionary and I was working with the kids and I heard about 3-6 months after that interview they told me that a limousine pulled up in the projects and Jermaine got out. He talked to the kids that lived in the projects.

DK: You were told that Michael had read the book and loved it?

GH: Yes.

DK: That had to make you feel pretty good.

GH: Yes, it did. Also, you know I thought the day would come that I would eventually meet him (Michael). I felt like his support was enough and the support of his father is just still there. My biggest supporter is his father.

DK: Were you ever able to meet Michael?

GH: I never met him. They invited me to, Tito, he’s a jazz artist, he was playing at the B.B. King which is over in Universal Studios, and the publicist invited me. She wanted me to meet whoever I hadn’t met, and I think they thought Michael was going to be there. I think they were setting it up for me to meet Michael finally. Everybody in the family was there, except Michael. I met the other family. I hadn’t met Janet prior to this, and that night I met Janet and everybody else was there.

DK: How was that? That had to be pretty special?

GH: It was really, really nice.

DK: After you completed the book, you sat back and you cried?

GH: The emotion came from, I had a story to tell and I wanted people to know what really happened. But I said, for the sake of this being book-worthy, I said I may as well do a little research on Michael and present who he is, what he’s done with his life, and during my research, finding out all of the humanitarian stuff and all of the children that he’s helped. Stuff that he’s never been given credit for because he didn’t want the credit. He was just doing the good deed and where the emotion came from was I said, “do they even know who they’re claiming this against?” Do they even know him? Who this man really is? That he’s somebody that has given his life to help hurting kids, dying kids? I just sat back and cried because I said, “this seems like the kind of attack that they put against Christ.” He came to help mankind and they crucified him. Dr. Martin Luther King, this man was trying to help people. They killed him. There are not very many people who has endured that type of attack, but Michael is definitely one that was enduring an attack not because of what he did, because of what he was doing and trying to do. Help bring the world together in harmony, peace, love. It was just….I just said, “this is a spiritual attack, that’s what this is. This attack right here comes straight from the pit of hell.”

DK: Who he really was, what he really did, is so opposite of what the media reported. Sometimes I’ll just be working on a page and it will just hit me, again, like what you were saying, do they even know who he was and I’ll just sit there and just start crying because it’s just such an emotional thing. Sometimes I try to envision what he must have felt.

GH: It would be different if he were really a bad person, then you don’t care. But when you really look at Michael’s life and his patterns, he always protected his image. Always. He did not have one child until he was married, even though the marriage wasn’t the thing, it was just to get the kids. But he still protected the sanctuary of a marriage by marrying the person. He didn’t want a bad image. His whole life was spent protecting. He never did anything that ruined his image. If you look at how he lived his life, he lived an impeccable life. Impeccable. He did nothing. I don’t think he’s ever had a moving violation. He lived an impeccable lifestyle and he was always protecting his image for the sake of the children. So come on, that’s the person you see molesting kids?

DK: You try to imagine how awful it must have been when he was hearing these things about himself

GH: I could see how he couldn’t sleep, the pain that was affecting him and how he’s trying to protect his own children from all this garbage, you know?

DK: Even all the things going around about the paternity and so many other things that just don’t matter or are outright lies. You just want to tell the media, “just stop it.”

GH: Let him rest in peace. They do it every day. These people do it all their life. People get their nose fixed every day! The very lady who’s making that report…how many face lifts have you had? Don’t worry about his, what about yours? It’s just crazy how they’re monstorizing him, but then when people meet him and they come to find out…they thought he was this crazy person, then when they meet him, they find out that he’s this wonderful man.

“They say you know someone by their music. “Heal the World”, “Man in the Mirror,” Make That Change, It Doesn’t Matter if You’re Black or White, what about the “Earth Song?” This is who MJ really is. A caring individual that cares not only about children, but about mankind all over the world”

“God gave Michael something that he didn’t give his accuser. A witness.” That’s actually a chapter in my book called “A Ram in a Bush”. Anybody spiritual will know what that means. Even though I said the truth behind the Michael Jackson child molestation allegations, you know, I do tell the story, but my whole theory was that the truth behind it is that it was really a spiritual attack kind of offset to alter the direction that Michael was heading in and that was to bring world peace, love and unity. I saw this thing on Facebook, this video, where they went through and showed a clip of somebody grieving in every country in this world over Michael. Places I didn’t even know. I could tell from my book that I’m getting orders from places like Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Germany, I’m getting book orders from Japan, from all over the world, but this one even went to places like Africa, Iraq, where someone had a picture of Michael and they were sobbing. I said “God, how could one person, one individual, who just so happened to be the son of Katherine and Joe Jackson, who is this person that you gave to this world, the gift that was so incredible, that the whole world is mourning?

DK: That’s so true. You think about the reach that he had. That he affected people all over the world.

GH: Countries you’ve never even heard of, you know? It’s amazing!

DK: That alone to me says, there’s something there. Even though there have been some Christian circles that criticize and condemn, but to me, there’s proof there in how he lived his life and how he affected people, that there was something very spiritual there.

I know that he was visited by some really powerful evangelists, and evangelists, they don’t leave until you accept Christ. They come for one reason and one reason only. Your soul. That’s it. It’s like, we’re going to do this now before I leave (laughter). It’s a done deal. I heard that there were several super powerful evangelists (that visited Michael). I know I won’t leave nobody’s side, my goal, my purpose, is your soul. Connecting your soul with God. Paula White and Darryl Strawberry went to the ranch right after the second allegations, while he was going through the trial, and I know Paula White ain’t leaving nobody unsaved.

I could actually tell by Michael’s quotes throughout the years that he was a Christian. He had the heart of Christ. Everything he said, he would quote Scripture. God says don’t forbid the little ones from coming. Then you’ve got people who go to church on Sundays that sit in pulpits who want to judge people. Well, the Bible says you judge a person by the fruit that they bear. That’s how you judge them. What kind of fruit were they bearing? When you look at Michael, Michael got more fruit than ministers, than pastors, than evangelists, and if you probably put them all together, Michael would probably have more. He wasn’t just….he wanted no glory. That’s another fruit. He was very humble. Every time Oprah does something charitable, she’s got cameras, got a documentary already planned and scheduled, but Michael, what was catching a lot of people off guard about Michael, (was that he was) doing his humanitarian deeds forever and not one news report, so when people go back and they research and they find out, “oh, he’s in the Guinness Book of World Records for being the most humanitarian giver, the biggest giver.” You know, giving away. Then he had a manager, that little short guy that was just in the news recently, I’ve met him, and he’s said stuff like, “You know, I’ve been over at his ranch and I’ve seen his movie theatre and somebody was explaining the way it was made, cause some of the kids who come to the ranch are on their death bed or they’re in big casts and they have to wheel them in, bed and all. And the guy asked Michael, “how can you do this?” He said….”I can’t even bear this. How can you do this time and time and time again?” He said Michael just looked at him and he said “This is what I was created to do.”

(Michael) told his mom, he was looking at one of those feed the homeless shows on TV, and he told his mom, he said, and he was a little boy when he told his mom this, he said “one day I have to make a lot of money. I’m going to feed those children.” That was in him as a child.

You’ve got to look at the whole person, not just a snippet of a news report, a newsflash…”oh, he molested children,” and you run with that? You’ve got to look at the whole person and go back to his childhood. What was his convictions as a child?

Everyone wanted to know why Michael Jackson never married before all of these stupid allegations. The first brother got married and Michael was mad at his brother, and the reason he was mad was because he said, “you’re letting our fans down.” I even say in my book, I say, Michael was never married because he was married to his fans. He was allowing his fans to adore him as he adored them. That’s who his bride was. The fans. The people that loved him.

When he went to the trial, and he got up on the top of the car, they thought he was crazy for that. He wanted to say to the fans, “thank you”. He was showing them special attention. Thank you for what you’re doing, and then he invited everybody to the ranch afterwards. He was always adoring. I heard stories from the fans letting me know that he was in communication with them. He’d give them feedback. They said he’s the first mega star that was literally in contact with his fan base. I’ve heard so many fans. A girl that I met when I was up in Vegas. She showed me a picture of her and Michael and she talked to Michael. She talked to him on a regular basis.

Michael never wiped the smile off his face. He just endeared them and just brightened up their day. This is heartbreaking, how do you do this? And he said, this is what I’m created for.

Later, when I did the press conference, in front of the Encino mansion and they didn’t want me to be out there with the press, so they told me to come in, they wanted me to come in, and when I came in I met Randy, I met Mrs. Jackson for the first time and I started meeting cousins and everybody wanted me to give them a book, and not just “a book”, they wanted an autographed copy. I said, God something is really wrong with this.” (in regards to the family wanted autographed copies from her).

When I first met Jermaine, I gave him the book and I said, “you need to know what really happened,” because Jermaine was coming off very angry in the media, he was militant. He was like “you people hurt my brother,” you know, and I told him, I said, “you need to know what really happened,” so I gave him a book and he looked at me real weird and said, “I need your autograph.” (laughter). I said “Lord, now this is the highlight right here.” Then I autographed, 2, 3, 4 books and gave them to him. I said “Lord if I don’t see a dime, this is it right here. To have a Jackson ask me (for my autograph)”. Then Mr. Jackson, it was so funny, because he thought, I guess he always makes sure he has books, because he takes them wherever he goes, and so he started doing stuff like autographing his name in my book and somebody has a book with his name and they’re like, I want your autograph!” It was recent too. He just gave somebody a book and they’re like “no, I want your autograph!”

This is just too amazing. I had a woe me attitude about this whole venture, like “God, why did you take the shyest person in the world and sit them in the seat where they’re the only one to witness,and now the only thing standing between getting this word out and the world knowing what really happened, was that I’ve got to come out of my shy place? I’ve got to come out of my quiet, my comfort zone, not being nobody and nobody noticing me” and I’m telling you, I toiled. I even went into, when I took that missionary call….I had the book written in 2000. I was finished writing the book in 2000 and I got called to full time missionary work and I jumped at the opportunity and I was like “Oh no, I’ve got to go work for God! I’ve got to go do a call for God!” Anything that would take me off that page.

This is the craziest thing you will probably ever want to hear. I went on and answered the call, went into the mission field with gang bangers. I’m in the projects, we had to move to the projects, and I’m walking around with gang bangers and drug dealers and I’m walking around with my little Bible while they’ve got guns. I have my Bible and they’re gang banging and dealing drugs. I’m trying to tell them about the Lord. But I was very successful. I was successfully witnessing Christ in that environment and I’ll never forget. I was always amazed how when I would tell them about Christ, they would stop and listen and then I’d ask them, “shall we pray?” In broad daylight I had gang bangers joining with me, with their head bowed. It was like 8 or 9 of them, it was a lot of them. When I walked up, they always do what the leaders says. The leader say, “we ain’t got time,” none of them got time. That day I never got a negative, I never got anybody to walk away, but that day there was a lot of them and whatever I said, it caught their attention and the leader said, “no, we need this,” and so, they all joined hands in a big circle and everybody said the Sinner’s prayer and I felt so good in my soul and I said, “God, I never would have known this could happen.” I was feeling at the top of my evangelistical, I’m at the top, you know? Then, I’ll never forget, I heard God say, “there’s one more” and as soon as I heard that voice, Michael Jackson came up in my spirit and it was like God was saying “you’re not through. You have a task. Yeah, you’re doing a good thing, but this is still something that’s undone.” That was closer to the beginning of 2003. I never forgot God told me that. I didn’t do it right away, because it was still in the mission field.

January or February 2003 I heard God’s voice again and let me tell you what He told me this time. He said “go after a publisher and don’t stop until you receive.” And I said, I said, “okay”. I know, you don’t hear that voice and I don’t get that adamant command very often so when I get it like that, I know it’s God and I know it’s something that I’ve got to do, otherwise I won’t be able to sleep at night, and so I said, “let me start knocking again. Let me start knocking on the doors of publishers,” and within 3 months I found the publisher. Then we went through another 3 months of editing. Now we down near September or October.

At one point, I almost didn’t go with the publisher because this little greedy demon came in and said “you can self-publish and you’ll make more money if you self-publish.” And I said, “yeah, maybe I’ll self-publish. I’ll make more money.” Then my nephew, I was taking care of my nephews at the time and they were the most money grubbing kids I’ve ever met in my life. I’ll never forget, this one nephew, the one that’s the biggest money grubber, came up to me one day and he said “so Auntie, what’s going on with the book? Did you sign with the publisher?” and I told him, I said, “Well, no, I’m thinking about self-publishing. I’ll make more money if I self-publish”. Let me tell you what he told me. He said, “well, is it about the money, or is it about getting the truth out?” That was the money grubber nephew. So I said, wait a minute. That wasn’t my nephew! God gives it to you one way and He’ll come back and give it to you another way. You know when you hear, you’ll know that is Him, because you know that was none of his (my nephew’s) words. It was like I walked away, I said, “Wait a minute, that wasn’t my nephew!!” Do you know that’s what made me say, “I’m signing with the publisher.” I went on and said, it’s not about the money, it’s about the truth. I went on and signed the contract, sent it back to the publisher. Do you know that had I not signed that contract when I did, we never would have gotten that book ready to be released in November for the press release, and that November, putting that press release out (at that time, was) when the timing was absolutely crucial. I didn’t know they were coming back after Michael and that was the month that they were hitting with their allegation against him and then when the whole trial came out.

You remember when I told you I heard that voice that said “go after a publisher,” it was in February of 02?” February was when they started plotting to come after him again! I couldn’t believe it. I looked at the timeline and I said “Oh my God!” Just the whole thing. How God was leading me. He knew, I didn’t know. He knew they were coming after him and February was the month that the investigator Sneddon met with the Mom and found out that at that point, the kids hadn’t slept with Michael in his room. They went back to the ranch. They had to go back a third time just to say “Oh, we want to sleep with you now. We want to sleep in your bed.” That was planned. That was calculated. That was in February when the investigator talked to them and they found out that, as of that time, they hadn’t slept in Michael’s room or in his bed. So they went back. That was their third trip to the ranch.

DK: Sneddon talked to Janet Arvizo ahead of time, and then the kids started sleeping in his room?

GH: The whole conspiracy, all of the conspiracy theories are in my second book. What happened was, the investigator, after the airing of that documentary, the investigator Sneddon, who has been after Michael forever, trying to prove him a child molester. He went and personally talked with Janet Arvizo, they talked in a parking lot, in a car, and that’s not proper for a prosecutor to turn into an investigator. Because now, you’re supposed to be a witness, and you’re not supposed to be able to witness as a prosector. At that point, when he went and met with Janet, he turned into a witness. So that move on his part was very improper and so it’s very suspicious to a lot of people as to him having a hand in this in the very beginning. Considering that when he talked with her initially, they had been to the ranch several times. A lot of the times they were there, Michael wasn’t there.

He found out that they had not slept in his room, so they went back the third time, their only reason for going back was to accomplish the goal of sleeping in his room and they bugged him like “Michael, we want to sleep in your room, in your bed. Oh, we want to sleep with you Michael,” you know.

Galvin Arvizo stated in the Martin Bashir documentary that he did in fact sleep in Michael Jackson’s bed, and that Michael Jackson slept on the floor with his body guard. Tom Sneddon met privately with Janet Arvizo in the parking lot and after said meeting changed her allegation that Michael Jackson was exploiting her children, to Michael Jackson had molested her children.

Michael was so cautious. Michael has been cautious with letting kids sleep in his room. As a matter of fact, there has been no children that has slept in his room or his bed since ’93. Everybody seemed to think that’s something he’d been doing. No, he hasn’t. And he hired, he had an employee that he had hired, and this guy’s only job was, when children was at Michael’s house, was to supervise and to be a supervisor and keep an eye on the kids. So when they came back wanting to sleep in his room and in his bed, Michael told them, “Well, I’ll let you sleep in my bed, but I’m going to sleep on the floor,” and him and his supervisor, they bedded up on the floor and let the kids sleep in his bed. Those kids never slept with Michael, ever, never, and when they finally did get an opportunity to sleep in his room and in his bed, Michael, along with his hired supervisor, was on the floor. He had somebody there, witnessing, and let me tell you what the prosecutor did. This was one of the guys that he labeled an unnamed, you remember there were about 3 or 4 people that were unnamed. What he did, it was like a threat. “If you come forward, if you do anything, we’re going to prosecute you too.” That’s what it was. It was to keep them out of the limelight, out of the media. To keep them from saying anything because you’re a potential perpetrator here, so you can’t say nothing to nobody. But he was really one of the best witnesses that Michael had.

DK: This was the guy that was hired as Michael’s supervisor?

GH: Yes, yes. That’s why the Michaelgate book is very, very important. I’m giving you a little sneak preview. The book will have a lot of additional information just like this.

DK: I feel I’ve lost somebody that I knew. I think the more you find out about him. You and I have done a lot of research, the more you feel you do know him in some ways.

DK: Your ministry children who are girls will come over and take over your bed (on soulpatrol.com) and you were responding to what people were saying about kids sleeping in his bed, things like that. “Maybe it was the children insisting on the sleepovers and treating Michael like one of the boys and not vice versa.” My husband’s friend was a camp counselor and my husband had gone with his friend once, and the camp counselors slept in the same room as the kids, and he saw it as the same thing. Kids want to feel a sense of comfort, of being around another adult, especially when they’re in a place that’s not home. People seem to automatically translate, if you say, sleeping or bed, they automatically translate it into sex. I don’t think Michael saw it that way at all.

GH: He didn’t, and you know, we don’t either because if we look into our own little lives. Like I said, for about 3-4 years, my ministry children came to my house on a weekly, weekend basis for sleepovers. The only thing I did, and I can relate this to Michael. I was very careful about when I had the boys over, because I’m a female. I didn’t play with the boys. I didn’t, you know, the boys didn’t come to my room, they didn’t get in my bed, not one boy can tell you that they slept in my bed because I’m being careful and cautious. The girls, because we’re all girls. They came to my room. You’re basically being a supervisor and I can see this part where Michael said the most intimate thing you can do with a person is share your bed. Sitting around on a person’s bed and you’re watching TV and you’re eating popcorn, if those kids have any kind of problem, you’re right there and you’ve got their ear. I mean, I did more ministry with my kids when they were sitting around watching TV in my bed. They’re comfortable, they’re relaxed. You see their little issues, you know how to work with them now. You’re just letting them be natural and you’re trying to be one of them so that they can trust you and open up. It’s therapeutic. I had little girls, one of the cutest little girls in my whole ministry, the most beautiful little girl, she thought she was a boy. It was in settings like that that I found out why she thought like that and why she was the baddest one out of all of them and that little girl ended up being the sweetest little kid I had. I was able to turn her head from that direction and she turned out to be the sweetest because I spent that kind of time with her where we were just laughing and playing and having fun and they’re all just thinking of me as one of the kids and really, I’m an adult in hiding. I’m really a counselor in hiding, you know?

DK: Sometimes you have to come down to their level in that way.

GH: You have to come down to their level, to reach them.

DK: That’s a great analogy, of how your situation was similar because maybe if people will hear that it will make more sense to them. That’s how I had always thought of it in how he (Michael) approached it, was exactly what you were saying. He was always trying to help the kids and listen to them and talk with them and play with them and then everything was made out to be something disgusting, that didn’t happen.

GH: I’ve got it in my book. I was just trying to show people that there was nothing unnatural or unnormal. What’s unnormal is for people to automatically assume that he was a child molester having no other facts. Having nothing else to go with that assumption other than that he had sleepovers. Well, how many of you guys have had sleepovers? You know. How many?