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Geraldine Hughes -

hallway and wait to catch Mr. Rothman coming or going to try
again to get a statement.
The media initially learned of the child molestation alle-
gations when Dr. Abrams, the psychiatrist seeing the 13-year
old boy, made a report to the Department of Children's Ser-
vices after a three-hour therapy session with him. The Depart-
ment of Children's Services contacted the police department
and a search warrant was issued to search Michael Jackson's
Neverland Ranch and Century City condominium. Immedi-
ately after the warrants were issued, the news leaked to the
media and on August 23, 1993 the story broke in a special news
report.
Within just a matter of hours, the allegations of child mo-
lestation was the top story on all major cable and network chan-
nels around the world. The conservative networks were air-
ing news as soon as it came in and the tabloids were doing the
same regardless whether the stories were true or not. Even the
British newspapers were headlining the story across Great
Britain. The tabloids were offering as high as a half a million
dollars for information from anyone that would be willing to
corroborate and authenticate the boy's allegations. They were
not concerned about the story being true because many so-
called witnesses came forth and their story was later struck
down.
Because of the hype and media frenzy taking place, even
highly confidential information was being leaked and flashed
across the news media throughout the world. Even the details
from the Department of Children's Services report were leaked
to the press reporting the details of the allegations given to
the social worker. This information is supposed to be highly
confidential and not available to the general public.
I was totally disgusted during this entire ordeal as I
watched the media try this case based on the word of only one
young boy's allegation, which was never substantiated. Yet,
the way the story was reported in the media, you would have
thought they had a signed confession by Michael Jackson per-
sonally admitting to the allegations.

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