December 18, 2003 - Larry King Live on CNN

Part One

Larry King: First, let me say that we invited Mr. Tom Sneddon as a guest on this program, and of course his invitation will remain open. We always do what’s fair. Mr. Graggis, you’ve been our guest several times. Start from the beginning. Were you hired in February?

Mark Graggis: Yes.

King: But you never mentioned that.

Graggis: Of course not. There was no reason to say it, because nothing had started yet. At the time, someone with foresight felt there was a problem with this particular family, and they knew it was going to be a stinky situation.

King: Did you take action through the Los Angeles investigation that they denied?

Graggis: Certainly. Certainly.

King: Did you speak with Los Angeles officials?

Graggis: My office’s representatives were doing that regularly in these investigations. We oversaw all the investigations. We knew everything about this case from day one.

King: So were you shocked that Santa Barbara officials made accusations that Los Angeles officials didn’t even get involved with?

Graggis: I was shocked—completely. I don’t know about you, but in 20 years of dealing with criminal cases, I’ve never seen a situation where, in a case like this, someone would go running around to different news agencies to buy into the story and bring in new criminal allegations. It just hasn’t happened.

King: And who do you mean by that person? The mother of the child?

Graggis: Well, I don’t want to get into every actor in this story. This is where it has ended up because, at its core, it’s an economic move. You saw Mr. Sneddon today at the press conference, when he said, “Well, that’s Los Angeles. What do you expect from Los Angeles?”—and I really didn’t understand what he meant. We’re talking about a situation in which a group of people dealing with sensitive matters in the Los Angeles area got involved and investigated this case. Their work was done by a group of their best and most skilled people. They interviewed the people involved. In the end, they could announce the result in three ways: proven with evidence and documentation, insufficient evidence, or baseless allegations. They said the evidence was baseless and without foundation. There was nothing left to say.

King: So you believe, based on that, the matter is over.

Graggis: Yes, clearly it had ended back then, Larry. In that situation, you couldn’t do anything more to get to the truth.

King: Considering the time period involved (in the published allegations) is between February and March, isn’t it impossible that something happened between Michael and that child after the investigation was over?

Graggis: Well, this is one of the most interesting things. Look at the criminal complaint. It states the alleged time of the crime was February 7 to March 10. Guess what happened on February 7—one day after the “Bashir” special aired. Announcing the crime on that day is just one more joke. As I said, behind this story there’s nothing but economic motivation, greed, and revenge.

King: You’re saying there are still such motives at work?

Graggis: Without a doubt.

King: So you’re saying that if you called them today and offered money, they would drop their complaints?

Graggis: I’m not going to call them after all these years just to pay them.

King: Not at all?

Graggis: Not at all. Not at all. This is one of those things that a group is waiting to happen. I tell all of them this once: we’re not going to let people exploit this man anymore. He’s a respectable man—at least, that’s the image I’ve formed of him. Whether in the media or elsewhere. He’s a respectable man, and in my experience of knowing him, I found him to be idealistic. He’s innocent. He’s truly so committed that it doesn’t matter to him what people think. The problem is that there are many people who have benefited from his good work.

King: What relationship does he have with these kids? There must be some kind of connection.

Graggis: In the 11 months I’ve been involved in this matter, Michael has been in contact with more than a thousand people—over a thousand.

King: Boys who spent nights with him?

Graggis: Children who were in his home—families who come there. You know, another thing that bothered me: today’s press conference by the district attorney. They went off their own path. The question is: why open a phone line to the public so people can come forward and bring in new complaints? There’s only one reason for that.

King: Were you afraid this would happen?

Graggis: No, no. In fact, my reaction is the opposite. I’m doing this on your show. I want anyone who has had a positive experience to step forward and let the defense office know. I’ll tell you: to handle these calls, they need several times more staff than they currently have.

King: Let’s get back to the main question. You’re saying that since you’ve known him, there have been thousands of boys around him.

Graggis: Thousands of children.

King: What does he do with them?

Graggis: You have to see it. Because I hadn’t gone there either, so I didn’t know. You have to see Neverland’s facilities. It’s unique. It’s ideal. It’s 2,700 acres (11 square kilometers). It’s in the foothills of those mountains. It has an amusement park. It has a small Disneyland train station with a train that goes around and around. It has a lake where swans swim. People come there, and he opens the gates—an entire bus full of disabled children, and this is the most exciting thing in the world for them.

King: Does he sleep with some of them?

Graggis: No, not the way you’re saying.

King: That would be wrong.

Graggis: Yes, it would be wrong. The story they’ve made up about him—luring them in—that’s the seduction. I’ve heard that every new psychologist has an opinion on this.

King: Two of these allegations involve giving alcohol, and NBC reported that the mother of the child initially went to a lawyer to say that her child told her he had been given alcohol.

Graggis: No, she went to a lawyer because she wanted money. Mrs. Jackson, Katherine (Michael’s mother), said something interesting the other night when they interviewed her. She said, “If my child had been sexually assaulted, where would I go? You’d go to the police, wouldn’t you? Where did these people go? They went looking for lawyers in town.” It reminds me of an old joke: a man got injured in a car accident, and when the ambulance comes for him, the paramedic asks, “Which hospital do you want to go to?” And he says, “Forget the hospital—I want to go to my lawyer’s office.” I mean, that’s the humor in this situation. Who, for a moment, thinks that out of 175,000 lawyers—lawyers I think are currently working in the state of California—the mother of this child would go to a lawyer who settled a case from 10 years ago with Michael for a multi-million-dollar agreement? She didn’t know any other lawyer? She just happened to walk into that office because Michael Jackson gave her child alcohol?

King: You’re saying there’s a gap? That’s what you mean?

Graggis: It’s a collapse and a wreck.

King: Now, setting all that aside, is it difficult to get to two major cases at the same time?

Graggis: No, actually I’ve had a different experience. Usually I’m a busy criminal defense attorney. Maybe at least 15 to 20 cases at a time. Because of these two cases, I’ve handed many other cases to other lawyers in my office, along with a group of lawyers I have who usually do what I ask them to do—and that’s a godsend. I can focus my attention on the matter, which usually isn’t the case.

King: So the Peterson and Jackson families completely understand?

Graggis: Jackie Peterson, whom I truly admire—yes. It’s really been a blessing for me. Catherine Jackson and Jackie Peterson are two of the strongest and most beautiful women I’ve ever met. I apologize to my poor mother, but I talk to them more than I talk to my own mother. Jackie’s reaction was immediate: she told me that Michael has a great gift that can be used by you. I know that’s a compliment, but I’m very grateful to her.

King: Do you get fully involved in your clients’ lives?

Graggis: Of course.

King: Do you follow it at home as well?

Graggis: Yes. I’ve lived through both of these cases. Michael’s case is especially exhausting for me because I’ve seen the full scenario of the case. I’ve seen all these things happening. It’s hard for me to understand that when an organization is faced with allegations like these, and the very same allegations—when there are people who do this kind of work—go looking for a story, and they end up concluding the allegations are baseless, and then a lawyer steps in, a money lawyer—this is why I call them “city lawyers.” My brother is one of them, too. I apologize to all of them, but when a lawyer who deals with financial matters gets involved, and right from the start the money lawyer goes after buying witnesses, that has to stop any legal pursuit.

King: All these allegations are about one child, right?

Graggis: Yes.

King: Two of them involve the use of alcohol. As I understand it, using alcohol doesn’t constitute a specific crime. It’s not a problem. And the sexual allegations could cover any degree of sexual contact.

Graggis: Whenever you’re accused in California—or in other places—of something involving minors, your crime is taken very seriously. These are all prosecutable sexual allegations, and this is full of conspiracy. Michael has spent his whole life helping children. Throughout his life, he has given with his own generosity and wide reach—and I didn’t know this clearly until I took on this case. I think it was 2001 when he was entered into the Guinness World Records book as the biggest donor to charitable organizations in history—maybe in the U.S., I don’t remember exactly. What I mean is: if you wanted to invent an allegation to harass him, if you decided to hurt him as much as possible, you would bring this current allegation against him. I said this the very first time the matter became public: if something like that had happened, Michael would have been the first person to come forward and say this was cruel—because he never wants to be a witness to anyone abusing a child, and he has never done that.

King: What do you say about the alcohol-giving issue? Where does that come from?

Graggis: Who knows where it came from? The fertile imagination of someone who wants to get to dollars.

King: So what about the report that this man’s brother was a witness to this happening?

Graggis: Yes. Well, his brother was one of the witnesses from the Los Angeles child services organization, and he said nothing ever happened. The brother said, “I’ve never slept with my brother,” and all of this happened before the mother went looking for a lawyer to get money. Before that, there had to be a motivation to reach money. What do you say to that?

Graggis: You’re familiar with such legal cases where one person says one thing and the other says, “I didn’t do it”—it’s all talk, right? In essence, the other person wasn’t even in the room. How do they reach a conclusion? I mean, the jury believes one person’s story and not the other’s.

Graggis: No, in this case there’s another reality. In California there’s a ruling that if someone lied about something earlier or concealed the truth, you can ignore their testimony. In any case, somewhere they lied. We have the time period of February 7 to March 10. We’ve reached this point, along with the fact that I and the members of the investigative team have statements and we have video and audio tapes from everyone involved in this matter—every situation where they could have come forward to file a complaint, but they didn’t. So what do they want to say now? That we were lying back then and now we’re not? That the brother lied back then and now he’s not? The problem with this case is right here. You can’t just sit back and defend these people while they’ve walked into the laundry machine of a money lawyer’s office.

King: Is defending this case difficult?

Graggis: No.

King: No?

Graggis: Want to know something? This case isn’t a problem to defend. One of the reasons that I and many criminal defense attorneys get involved in defending this kind of case—cases that become about everyday matters—is that you’re fighting for someone’s freedom. You’re not fighting for someone’s money.

King: Someone’s life is in your hands.

Graggis: Someone’s life is in your hands. If you’re a criminal defense attorney, this case is the height of the fight—where someone is accused wrongly and all kinds of annoying voices are heard in the corners, trying to build a story out of these false allegations, and you stand in between your client and the final punishment.

King: Does the 10-year-old settlement with your complainant make you hesitate?

Graggis: They always do this—come back and revive something from 10 years ago and say, “I should have done this or that.” That’s meaningless. I’m sure it will be proven that these allegations were infinitely huge lies, and once this is proven, nothing like this will happen again. This morning we got a permanent injunction against the airline company “Executive Jet.”

King: A permanent injunction—meaning they can’t do what?

Graggis: It means they can’t do anything with the tape they secretly filmed of Michael’s conversations on their plane. They can’t touch it. They can’t sell it or copy it.

King: Is one of the biggest differences that 10 years ago the child didn’t take the matter to court, and now we have a child who wants to push his complaints to a conclusion? That makes it different.

Graggis: I don’t know if anything changed in the substance of the matter. You know, in many ways this difference isn’t that important. They filed the complaints. You can’t take back complaints. Of course, it’s still not clear whether there will be a trial.

King: Could it be that there won’t be a trial?

Graggis: When we get to the stage of preliminary questioning in this case, I invite them to participate in the questioning so I can speak with the witnesses. Because I believe that once we have a conversation, the matter will become completely clear. That’s exactly what this case is about.

King: You mean you’ll get that request for speaking, for example, in front of the grand jury?

Graggis: I don’t think they can go before the grand jury. There are many technical legal reasons. But no. I don’t think they can go before the grand jury. I don’t see anything beyond preliminary questioning.

King: Are you shocked about the “Executive Jet” matter?

Graggis: Let me say that Michael was less shocked than I was at first, because he’s been involved in situations like this for many years.

King: So they secretly filmed him?

Graggis: Yes, secretly. They used people to disrupt his privacy, and it’s infuriating. Imagine it: he comes onto the plane, traveling with a company he’s used several times over the years, and on that plane they secretly install cameras to record his conversations and those with his lawyer—this is when he’s going to the police station. I can’t imagine anything more cruel, and when we went before the judge, he thought the same way. And that’s not all. We’ve also heard that they installed microphones at the police station. Now let me tell you something else. Something happened to me by chance in the last ten days: they had installed a pipe bomb in my home.

King: What?

Graggis: Yes. We were actually doing some repairs at home, and one of the workers discovered a pipe bomb in front of the house. The police came, closed the street, and destroyed the bomb. Apparently there are people who...

King: So there have been threats against your life?

Graggis: Threats don’t stand out against all the overwhelming support. But in any case, they’re crazy people who do whatever they do—whether their actions are based on a logical plan or not.

King: How much support do you get?

Graggis: The level of support is unbelievable. Maybe one day—around 500 to a thousand emails and letters come to my office.

King: From everywhere?

Graggis: I have to say, from everywhere—around the world. From every color, race, and religion. The level of support is unbelievable. People almost know from their own instincts what’s behind this case. I think people understand. They can see. You see the results of the polls. We think you yourself mentioned earlier that the outcome of people’s opinions has increasingly shifted toward Michael as people learn more about the case. They can see what’s happening.