According to Katz, he twice interviewed Jackson's alleged victim and the teenager's younger brother in his Beverly Hills office, once on May 29, 2003 and again the following month. During those interviews, the younger boy spoke openly of Jackson's alleged illicit behavior, while the older boy broke down when Katz asked whether he had ever been molested by the performer.
It was during these sessions that the older boy surprisingly revealed that he was aware that Jackson had faced prior child abuse allegations (a criminal probe evaporated after an eight-figure civil settlement was struck in 1994 with accuser Jordan Chandler and his family).
Katz told Zelis that it took a lot of time to get the older boy to trust him, noting that he was aided by the child's mother, who "had to really spell out" that the psychologist was "helping us, working for us." Katz told Zelis that he assured the child he was doing the right thing by relating his experiences at Neverland Ranch. "We talked all about how courageous this was," Katz told Zelis, "and I said to him, 'You know, you don't want Jackson to do these things to kids again, do you?'"
Katz recalled that the boy responded, "Well, Jordy Chandler did not stop him."
The child's reference to Jackson's original accuser will likely be seized upon by defense attorney Thomas Mesereau, who has argued that the current molestation allegations are a sham, part of a extortion scheme that has similarities to the 1993 case (while denying the original allegations, Jackson has said he paid more than $20 million to settle the case because he feared prolonged litigation would affect his career).
A Santa Barbara Sheriff's Department report of Zelis's June 2003 interview with Katz, which The Smoking Gun has reviewed, does not address how the boy knew of the Chandler case or whether he had discussed the 1993 matter with his mother, whom Mesereau has branded the grifting mastermind of her children's abuse tales. The woman has claimed that she first learned that her son was molested by Jackson on September 30, 2003, when several investigators, including District Attorney Tom Sneddon, broke the news to her during a meeting at an L.A. hotel.
