A federal lawsuit accuses the late pop star Michael Jackson of being a “serial child predator” who “drugged, raped, and sexually assaulted” a group of siblings over the course of years.
The complaint, filed in California federal court on Friday, comes from Edward, Dominic and Aldo Cascio, along with their sister Marie-Nicole Porte. It names the Michael Jackson Company as well as various figures in the Jackson estate.
The suit claims that Jackson, who met the Cascios’ father when he worked at a hotel that Jackson frequented, “groomed and brainwashed” the children from the time they were young, plying them drugs and alcohol and showing them pornography to desensitize them to Jackson’s alleged abuses.
Staff are accused of being aware of and facilitating the abuse, according to the lawsuit, allegedly booking Jackson in hotel rooms near the children when they traveled together.
The Cascios had previously defended Jackson’s reputation in the face of allegations of child abuse, but said they were finally “deprogrammed” about their experience after the release of the bombshell 2019 HBO documentary Leaving Neverland, which aired new allegations.
“Leaving Neverland deprogrammed Plaintiffs and forced them, for the first time, to become conscious of the reality: Jackson’s abuse was wrong and had severely damaged them,” the suit claims.
After the film’s release, Jackson’s estate said the documentary was filled with “falsity” and called its claims “tabloid character assassination” based “on the word of two perjurers.”
Jackson died in 2009, not long after being acquitted in 2005 on all counts in a child molestation case. In 1994, he reportedly paid millions to settle a previous child molestation claim, though Jackson maintained his innocence throughout the process.
After his death, the Jackson estate allegedly deceived the siblings into signing a settlement that released Jackson from liability and forced any future complaints into confidential arbitration, the lawsuit claims.
Martin Singer, who represents the Jackson estate, has called the suit a “desperate money grab.”
“The family staunchly defended Michael Jackson for more than 25 years, attesting to his innocence of inappropriate conduct,” Singer said in a statement provided to various media outlets. “This new court filing is a transparent forum-shopping tactic in their scheme to obtain hundreds of millions of dollars from Michael’s estate and companies.”
In January, the Cascios were in a Beverly Hills courthouse seeking to void what they called the “purported settlement” agreement with the estate, while the Jackson estate pushed to move the dispute into arbitration.
A judge declined to issue an immediate ruling.
“We categorically dispute these claims,” Singer reportedly told the court at the time.
Aldo Cascio recently detailed the alleged abuses in an interview with The Daily Mail.
“I was just sitting on the bed with him during the day, and I was just playing my Game Boy,” he said. “And I remember he just went to me and pulled down my shorts.”
”Since middle school, it introduced me to hell and my demons,” he added. “I realized that I might want to end my life one day.”
