A contract was drawn up, signed by Enquirer editor David Perel. Enquirer reporter Jim Mitteager, who is also now deceased, met with Newt and his son at the Marriott hotel in downtown San Francisco.
It seemed that all systems were go. But the Newts declined the offer at the last minute.
Ron Newt Sr., to whom $200,000 would have seemed like the world on a silver platter, wrote "No good sucker" where his signature was supposed to go. The reason: Nothing ever happened between Jackson and the Newt boys.
Indeed, no kids, no matter how much money was dangled by the tabloids, ever showed up to trade stories of Jackson malfeasance for big lumps of cash after the first scandal broke in 1993.
"Maybe there aren't any other kids," a current Enquirer editor conceded.
I met Bobby Newt yesterday near the office where he works as a mortgage broker in suburban Los Angeles.
Just as his dad promised me a few days earlier, he's a good-looking kid. He's half black and half Chinese.
Robert and his twin brother were likely very cute kids. They have the same features as other boys advertised as alleged Neverland "victims." But all Bobby Newt remembers of his encounter with Jackson is good times.
And all he remembers about the man from The National Enquirer is that he wanted Bobby, then 18, to lie.
"He said, 'Say he grabbed you on the butt. Say he grabbed you and touched you in any kind of way,'" Newt said. "He told us he took all these people down. Now he was going to take Michael down. That he would really destroy him. He told us he took all these other famous people down. All the major people that had scandals against them. He said, 'We take these people down. That's what we do.'"
Prior to Bobby's meeting with Mitteager, Bobby's father met with him and brought along an intermediary, San Francisco politician, businessman and fellow jailbird Charlie Walker.
Walker is infamous in San Francisco circles for being "hooked up" to anything interesting cooking on the West Coast.
"My dad said these dudes are offering this money to take Michael Jackson down. And the guy [Mitteager] said, 'Say he touched you. All you have to do is say it. But you might have to take the stand. You might have to go on 'Oprah' in front of all these people. You have to be prepared for this thing. Just say it. And we'll give you money,'" Newt said.
Two pieces of evidence confirm the Newts' story. One is the actual contract proffered by the Enquirer and signed by Perel, who declined to comment for this story.
The contract, written as a letter, says it's an agreement between the tabloid and the Newts for their exclusive story regarding "your relationship with and knowledge of Michael Jackson, and his sexuality, your knowledge of Michael Jackson's sexual contact and attempts at sexual contact with Robert Newt and others."
Mitteager expected them to sign, even though it was completely untrue and there was, in fact, no story.
He knew you were lying, I reminded Bobby Newt.
"Exactly! And he didn't care! He was like, 'Just say it and we'll give you the money.' And I was like, 'He [Jackson] never touched me!" Newt said. "He [Mitteager] was really fishing and really digging. Think about it — most people you say it to, 'We'll give you this money,' even [if it's not true]. And they'd take it."
Bobby Newt recalled more details of the 30-minute meeting with The National Enquirer's reporter:
"He was trying to coach me — if I decided to take the money, what would happen. He said 'You know, it's going to be a huge scandal. You'll probably have a lot of people not liking you. You're going to be famous!' But to me, you'd be ruined. And the truth is Michael didn't do anything even close to trying to molest us."
Ironically, the second piece of evidence also backs up the Newts' story. Unbeknownst to them, they were taped by Mitteager.
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