The Jackson kid comes of age

Thile legions of Michael Jackson loyalists were busy celebrating the 25th anniversary of their idol’s “Thriller” album there was another milestone marked.

To me it was a much more noteworthy date to commemorate – much more so than the noisy, highly orchestrated tribute to the entertainer’s last real blockbuster hit.

Gavin Arvizo came of age. On December 2nd he marked his 18th birthday. In the eyes of the law he is now a fully emancipated adult. If he wanted to he could now make his own decision to write a book or sell his story about his association with the self-appointed King of Pop. But he hasn’t - more on that in a minute.

He now goes by another name and he and his family have moved away from the southern California home they took after the now infamous criminal trial of Jackson.

I hesitate to reveal what I know of the young man’s current life. He has already been through so much and specific disclosures can only bring havoc to his carefully re-constructed existence. The bottom line, however, is that he is fine.

He lost a year in school when he waged his successful battle with fourth stage cancer so he is still in high school, still very close to his younger brother who is in the same grade. He’s had after school jobs in the food industry. He now has his own car. He is a personable, funny kid who is a natural flirt with the girls. Because of his prolonged illness he is shorter than he probably would otherwise have been but he’s a natural athlete and he loves to play football. He’s currently concentrating on his grades – he wants to keep them high because he has his eye on going to college. He might want to be a policeman or a lawyer. Although the prosecution lost the case this young man still looks up to those cops and lawyers who believed his story and fought for him in court.

Gavin’s family has kept their real identities secret so his peers have no idea that he was the boy at the center of the scandal that could have sent a superstar to prison. They have no inkling that he still struggles with emotional problems stemming from his parents tumultuous divorce. They might not realize that his mother was branded both a manipulative grifter and a mental basket case by Michael Jackson’s highly paid and viper-like defense attorney, Tom Mesereau.

I think its worth noting that NOTHING Attorney Mesereau predicted about this family came true.

Not one member of this supposed outlaw family ever sold a story to a tabloid. They did not cooperate with the British press, widely known for treating interview subjects to intercontinental first class flights, fancy hotels and big checks. They never leaked information to an American tabloid despite the fact that their home and the boy’s school were often surrounded by paparazzi. They never gave an interview – period.

They did not file a civil suit against Michael Jackson as Mesereau repeatedly sneered to the jury. True, once Jackson was found not guilty on all ten criminal counts their ammunition for filing such a suit was dampened. But after three members of the Jackson jury publicly re-canted their “not guilty” votes I can tell you there were plenty of lawyers who would have filed such a suit, pro bono, content to be paid in the sheer publicity such a suit would have brought or in real hard cash if Jackson had settled, as he did with the family of Jordan Chandler back in 1994. As I first reported on Court TV in 2004 Jackson spent nearly 30 million dollars making the Chandler problem go away.

And, if the Arvizo family was the horrible, habitually conniving, grifter-like group Mesereau painted them to be during the trial don’t you think they would have gotten themselves into trouble by now? At least one member of the family, anyway? Instead, in the two and a half years since the verdict-heard-round-the-world the family has settled into a normal hum-drum pattern of life. School, work, taking care of the kids, meals at home … then you wake up the next day and do it all over again.

Janet Arvizo, perhaps the most vilified witness I’ve ever seen in my long career of reporting on court cases, has had two babies with her second husband. The husband, a well respected and high ranking military man has provided for the family and been the stable male influence the older boys needed. The boys are doing well in school. The older sister is studying to be a nurse. Not one member of the family has been in trouble with the law.

Jackson attorney Tom Mesereau derisively called them master manipulators who lived lives supported by their criminal activities. I believed then and I believe now that Tom Mesereau gave up a lifetime of good deeds, working with the underprivileged, to smear the very type of family he’d always helped – and all in the name of the almighty Michael Jackson dollar. Despite Janet Arvizo’s short comings – an abusive existence at the hands of her unscrupulous first husband, her mental ramblings on the stand, her obvious emotional ups and downs it was painful to watch what Mesereau did to her and the rest of the family in that courtroom.

As we read stories like the one linked below, written by long time Jackson biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli, entitled “Jackson the Hobo’s Worldwide Trail of Debt” printed in the London Daily Mail in mid-December 2007 – Let’s try to put into perspective who deserves our consideration.

I vote for the kid who just turned 18. So do a lot of other people I know who are still rooting for the young man.

Happy Birthday, Gavin, where ever you are.