Has child pornography ever been found in Michael Jackson’s possession?
No. Police extensively searched Jackson's premises both in 1993 and in 2003 and there was nothing illegal found, not in physical or digital format (ie. on computers). Child pornography is illegal to possess and the possession of it is a crime in itself, so had there been any child pornography found in Jackson’s possession he would have been charged with that crime and he never was charged with such a crime.
Despite of the fact that investigators acknowledged that
“the search warrant didn’t result in anything that would support a criminal filing” [1], the prosecution in the media tried to bolster their case by referring to two legal art photography books from the 1960s, found at Neverland during the 1993 investigation, as “child erotica” because they included pictures of nude boys at play. One book, entitled
The Boy: A Photographic Essay, judging from an inscription, was a gift Jackson received from a fan. The inscription read:
“To Michael: From your fan, “Rhonda” ♥ 1983, Chicago”. The other entitled
Boys Will Be Boys, had an inscription in it by Jackson himself and it read:
“Look at the true spirit of happiness and joy in these boys’ faces. This is the spirit of boyhood, a life I never had and will always dream of. This is the life I want for my children, MJ.” [2] These books were shown to the jury at Jackson’s 2005 trial and possibly to the two Grand Juries which discussed the allegations against Jackson in 1994. These two books were a small portion of Jackson’s huge collection of art photography books, as he was an avid collector of books, especially art books, art photography books and vintage books.
In the 2005 search police confiscated sixteen computers from Neverland, four from Jackson’s bedroom, and sent them to the FBI for a forensic examination of their hard drives. None of the computers contained any illegal material or had any traces of access to illegal material on the Internet. The adult websites visited from the computers were all legal, heterosexual websites and the pictures found on their hard drives and stored in their caches, as far back as 1998, were legal, heterosexual material. Similarly, all the adult DVDs found in Jackson’s possession contained legal, heterosexual material. [3] [4] [5]
All of this material were irrelevant to the charges and could not be directly linked to the prosecution's case so Judge Rodney Melville did not allow the prosecution to refer to this evidence in court. [4] However, Judge Melville allowed the prosecution to introduce a couple of art books and a large amount of adult magazines into evidence [5]. The art photography books confiscated in the 2005 search were introduced because some of them included pictures of men and/or women partially clothed or nude. They were all legal and they were a small portion of the huge art book collection Jackson possessed. Most of them were found in big cardboard boxes among hundreds and thousands of other books [6].
The adult magazines found in Jackson’s possession noted release dates from 1991 up until September 2003 (the actual search took place in November 2003) and were all legally and commercially produced heterosexual material. Most of them were found in Jackson’s nightstand, in a box at the base of his bed and in a briefcase in a closet of his bedroom. The prosecution spent days displaying the magazines that they confiscated from Jackson’s bedroom on a big screen. [7] Observers wondered what point they were trying to make with the detailed, graphic presentation of this completely legal collection that only pointed to Jackson’s sexual interest in women, other than perhaps, trying to publicly humiliate him and prejudice the conservative jury against him in the absence of real, relevant evidence.
Although the prosecution claimed that Jackson showed adult material to the 2003 accuser, Gavin Arvizo, in order to “groom” him – a claim that we fully address when we discuss the Arvizo allegations
[link] - this would not explain the full array of Jackson’s adult magazines, many of which had release dates after the date the accuser left Neverland.
Sources:
[1] Jim Newton and Sonia Nazario - Police Say Seized Tapes Do Not Incriminate Jackson : Investigation: Officials continue to interview children in connection with molestation allegations. (Los Angeles Times, August 27, 1993)
http://articles.latimes.com/1993-08-27/news/mn-28516_1_jackson-case
[2] Court Documents and Transcripts from Jackson’s 2005 trial, for example, Closing Arguments by Thomas Mesereau (June 2, 2005)
[3] The results of the FBI’s forensic examination of the hard drives of Jackson’s computers in Jackson’s FBI files as released in 2009
http://vault.fbi.gov/Michael%20Jackson/Michael%20Jackson%2062%20File%20Part%203%20of%203/view
[4] Judge may exclude Michael Jackson porn evidence (Associated Press, March 23, 2005)
Original place of publication (no longer active link):
http://www.cp24.com/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20050323/jackson_porn_050323?hub=CP24Sports
Secondary source for the article:
[pdf]
[5] Jackson a "Playboy" Man (E!Online, March 23, 2005)
http://uk.eonline.com/news/jackson_playboy_man/49506
[6] Court Documents and Transcripts from Jackson’s 2005 trial, for example, the testimony of police officer Janet Williams (April 19, 2005)
[7] Court Transcripts from Jackson’s 2005 trial on March 24-28, 2005
