Michael Jackson’s estate is fighting his accusers’ request to unseal police records that contain nude photos of Jackson that were taken by police, according to a filing obtained by The Daily Beast.
Wade Robson and James Safechuck were the subject of the documentary Leaving Neverland, in which they describe, in grueling detail, being groomed and assaulted by Jackson over the course of several years from the ages of 7 and 10 years old, respectively—including repeated instances in which they were allegedly forced to either kiss Jackson or engage in anal or oral sex with him.
The two now grown men are currently in the process of suing Jackson’s estate for allegedly enabling their abuse at the hands of the pop superstar. The latest bid by Robson and Safechuck’s legal team to obtain the old police records and photos is to prove their belief that Jackson “collected sexually provocative” photos of children, according to their attorney John C. Carpenter.
“The public at large will never see these photographs of Michael Jackson or the photographs of his child victims,” Carpenter says. “What is important is that Michael Jackson took and collected sexually provocative photographs of children that were seized by the police in their criminal investigation,” he adds.
But Jackson’s estate says in its filing to block his accusers’ access that the records request allows the “plaintiffs to exploit that series of circumstances to their benefit,” and that “obtaining those photographs now adds a second defilement to the first.”
“The photographs Plaintiffs seek were not taken willingly by Mr. Jackson,” the estate also says in the filing, “They were the result of a court-ordered search based on a false statement in what became a discredited criminal investigation.”
The estate calls the request “an egregious violation of these privacy rights, and is simply beyond the pale,” and notes that the plaintiffs had requested the records multiple times, even though they are “sealed by a court-entered protective order from the Santa Barbara Superior Court.”
Robson and Safechuck’s attorney tells The Beast that the photos are important to his clients’ case—even though, he says, “I wish I never had to look at them.”
This post was originally published on Daily Beast
