Whenever these allegations about Michael Jackson come up, I remember Was Michael Jackson Framed? The Untold Story by Mary A. Fisher from GQ, October 1994.

Jackson is a lot like Bat Boy--a freak about whom it is easy to believe freaky things. (In this interview, Bat Boy himself talks about MJ toward the end.)

I don't know if Michael did or didn't, but that GQ story gives a pretty clear idea of the character of his 1993 accusers and the obviously shaky basis of the allegations--apparently based on a "confession" made by the boy while he was under the influence of sodium amytal, while being asked suggestive questions (an unscrupulous but common technique by those who want to get someone who is vulnerable and gullible to have a certain "memory").

When news accounts (or premature convictions) now say, "Court TV is reporting..." they are depending on the credibility of Court TV's Diane Dimond, who worked on the Jackson story for Hard Copy back in 1993. The GQ article:

On December 15, Hard Copy presented "The Bedroom Maid's Painful Secret." Blanca Francia told [Diane] Dimond and other reporters that she had seen a naked Jackson taking showers and Jacuzzi baths with young boys. She also told Dimond that she had witnessed her own son in compromising positions with Jackson-- an allegation that the grand juries apparently never found credible. A copy of Francia's sworn testimony reveals that Hard Copy paid her $20,000, and had Dimond checked out the woman's claims, she would have found them to be false. Under deposition by a Jackson attorney, Francia admitted she had never actually see Jackson shower with anyone nor had she seen him naked with boys in his Jacuzzi. They always had their swimming trunks on, she acknowledged. The coverage, says Michael Levine, a Jackson press representative, "followed a proctologist's view of the world. Hard Copy was loathsome. The vicious and vile treatment of this man in the media was for selfish reasons. [Even] if you have never bought a Michael Jackson record in your life, you should be very concerned. Society is built on very few pillars. One of them is truth. When you abandon that, it's a slippery slope."

[Also posted as Michael Jackson story from GQ , October 1994 to Brian Flemming's Weblog]