The four adult Cascio siblings who allege Michael Jackson sexually abused them on interstate or international trips when they were minors have lost their bid for a public trial of their child sex trafficking claims and must instead go to private arbitration with Jackson’s estate, a federal judge has ruled.
In a 10-page ruling obtained by Rolling Stone, U.S. District Judge Hernán D. Vera granted the estate’s motion to compel arbitration, finding the arbitration agreement included in a 2019 settlement with the siblings was enforceable. The four siblings had argued that the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2021 invalidated the agreement, but the judge said the EFAA didn’t apply retroactively.
“Because the arbitration provision was executed before the effective date of the statute, and after the commencement of the parties’ dispute, the EFAA does not apply. Although the allegations are horrific, the court is without discretion to do aught but enforce the language of the arbitration clause,” Judge Vera wrote.
“It’s disappointing, but not surprising, that the decision on whether the Cascios were duped into signing an unconscionable agreement with an arbitration clause will be made by an arbitrator rather than a jury of peers,” Cascio family lawyer Howard King said in a statement shared with Rolling Stone. “The family had hoped the court would allow for a public trial over the decades-long molestations of the Cascio siblings by Michael Jackson and the ensuing cover-up by his advisors. Instead, the family will seek justice from the dark confines of a private conference room.”
The Jackson estate has vehemently denied the siblings’ claims. Lawyers for the estate did not immediately reply to requests for comment on Thursday.
Frank Cascio and his siblings Dominic, Marie-Nicole, and Aldo filed their trafficking lawsuit in Los Angeles federal court last February. They alleged Jackson “groomed and brainwashed” them using his wealth, celebrity status, and network of employees and advisers. According to the complaint, Jackson met the brothers and sister through their father, who worked at a luxury hotel Jackson frequently visited. After gaining the family’s trust with gifts, declarations of affection, and sustained attention, Jackson allegedly isolated the children from responsible adults, plied them with drugs and alcohol, exposed them to pornography, and then abused them individually.
“Michael Jackson was a serial child predator who, over the course of more than a decade, drugged, raped, and sexually assaulted each of the plaintiffs, beginning when some were as young as seven or eight,” the 23-page lawsuit said. The filing alleged that the abuse occurred over extended periods in multiple locations worldwide, including during visits when Jackson and his children stayed at the siblings’ family home.
“This lawsuit is a desperate money grab by additional members of the Cascio family who have hopped on the bandwagon with their brother Frank, who is already being sued in arbitration for civil extortion. The family staunchly defended Michael Jackson for more than 25 years, attesting to his innocence of inappropriate conduct,” Martin Singer, a lawyer for Jackson’s estate, previously told Rolling Stone. “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.”
Prior to filing the lawsuit, the siblings appeared in a Beverly Hills courthouse last January amid a related effort to void the prior financial settlement with Jackson’s estate that they described as “an unlawful agreement to silence victims of childhood sexual abuse.” That dispute was also ordered to private arbitration.
The Cascio family previously referred to themselves as Jackson’s “second family” in media interviews. They were among the pop star’s most ardent defenders during his criminal trial, which ended with an acquittal on charges of child sex abuse in 2005. Jackson did settle a different civil claim in 1994 while maintaining his innocence.
After Jackson’s death in 2009, Wade Robson, a choreographer and director, and James Safechuck, a writer, actor, and director, stepped forward with claims Jackson molested them in the 1980s and 1990s, sometimes during overnight stays at Neverland Ranch. They detailed their allegations in the 2019 documentary Leaving Neverland. According to the Cascio siblings, the documentary “deprogrammed” them and forced them to recognize for the first time that Jackson’s actions were wrong and “severely damaged them.”