14 DAY TRIAL // Some scandals have the power to follow you beyond the grave. James Safechuck, a 36-year-old man who played alongside Michael Jackson in a Pepsi commercial in 1987, when he was just 10, has just sued Jackson's estate, claiming that the superstar has molested him when they were shooting for the ad.
Page Six reports that Safechuck's lawyers have filed the documents on Friday and in them they are alleging that Michael Jackson held inappropriate relations with their client. The lawsuit is a part of the ongoing legal battle that Australian choreographer Wade Robson, 31, has been fighting for some time, after he claimed that the superstar made him perform lewd acts on him.
Previously, both boys had denied that Jackson had molested them, but now they're taking their statements back and pursuing the matter in court. Safechuck, who is a grown man today, is reported to be married and the father of two children, working as a computer programmer.
It's not known why Safechuck waited so long to come forward with this information and the allegations of inappropriate behavior from the pop star, but a source close to him has said that “once you start having children and you see what it's all about … your perspective on life changes.”
The shocking part of the lawsuit is that Safechuck alleges Michael molested him “from the age of 10 to about 14 or 15.” The child actor went on many Pepsi-sponsored trips with the King of Pop at the time the commercial came out, even going abroad to England.
Adding credence to the former child-star's claims are testimonies of employees at Jackson's Neverland Ranch which said that they had seen the singer with Jimmy in a hot tub, with his hands “down the front of Jimmy's underpants and was manipulating the boy's genitalia.”
Later, a maid for Jackson said that she saw the singer and Safechuck in bed together without any shirts on. All this evidence was filed ahead of Jackson's 2005 trial but a judge ruled that this evidence couldn't be presented in court because Safechuck claimed at the time that nothing inappropriate had happened on both occasions.
Even Jackson's own sister, La Toya, came out in public saying that she found a canceled check made out to a child actor's name. Though she wouldn't divulge the name of the child in question, she did say that his father was a garbage collector.
Safechuck's father was at the time, and still is, a garbage collector, meaning that he was the recipient of the alleged check. La Toya made these statement in 1994 during a TV interview but she has since recanted them, claiming that she was being pressured by her husband Jack Gordon.
Michael Jackson's estate has responded to the claims today, saying that they are false, “Twenty five years after the fact and five years after Michael Jackson passed away Mr. Safechuck — who has many times over the years denied Michael Jackson did anything inappropriate to him — is now demanding money from Michael’s Estate by claiming he suddenly recalls life differently.”
