A judge has ruled against an acclaimed choreographer who accused Michael Jackson of molesting him as a child.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff dismissed Wade Robson’s lawsuit Tuesday and awarded summary judgment to two corporation owned by the late King of Pop, MJJ Productions and MJJ Ventures.
Mr. Robson, 35, sued the defendants in 2013, alleging Jackson molested him over a seven-year period starting after they first met in the late 1980s.
Jackson was the sole shareholder of the two corporations prior to dying in 2009, meaning neither of the defendants were liable for Mr. Robson’s exposure to the singer, the judge ruled Tuesday.
“Without control over Michael Jackson, the corporate defendants could not impose ’reasonable safeguards’ or take ’reasonable steps’ to ’avoid acts of unlawful sexual conduct in the future’ by Michael Jackson,” the ruling said.
An attorney for the choreographer lauded the ruling and pledged to appeal.
“What the judge is saying is that you if own a corporation or a company, you can hire people, use these people to facilitate your sexual abuse, use them to facilitate victims,” said Vince Finaldi, Mr. Robson’s attorney.
“So long as you’re the sole owner of that corporation, the corporation can’t be held liable,” he told The Associated Press.
The judge did not issue a ruling on the credibility of the choreographer’s allegations.
Mr. Robson entered show business at the age of 5, and as a teenager he was recognized for arranging dance sequences for the likes of Britney Spears and NSYNC, among other pop acts.
Mr Robson testified in Jackson’s defense when the singer was on trial for molestation in 2005, and swore at the time that the singer never abused him. He walked back that claim the following decade, however, and publicly accused Jackson about four years following his death.
“This is not a case of repressed memory,” Mr. Robson said at the time. “I have never forgotten one moment of what Michael did to me, but I was psychologically and emotionally completely unable and unwilling to understand that it was sexual abuse.”
Howard Weitzman, an attorney for the Jackson estate, cited the plaintiff’s previous testimony in applauding the judge for his “correct decision” in dismissing the claim.
“In my opinion Mr. Robson’s allegations, made 20 plus years after they supposedly occurred and years after Mr. Robson testified twice under oath — including in front of a jury — that Michael Jackson had never done anything wrong to him was always about the money rather than a search for the truth,” he told AP.
Jackson was arraigned in 2004 on multiple counts of molestation but was ultimately acquitted. He died five years later at the age of 50.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.