Cascio siblings lawsuit against Jackson estate referred to arbitration

A federal judge in Los Angeles has ruled that the lawsuit brought by four members of the Cascio family against Michael Jackson's estate cannot be heard in a public court. U.S. District Judge Hernán D. Vera ruled that a 2019 settlement agreement binds the parties to mandatory, confidential arbitration. In his ten page ruling, the judge wrote: "Although the allegations are horrific, the court is without discretion to do aught but enforce the language of the arbitration clause."

The four plaintiffs, Edward, Dominic, Marie Nicole, and Aldo Cascio, had sued the estate over sexual abuse and child sex trafficking. They claim that Michael Jackson abused them over a period of more than ten years, beginning in the late 1980s and continuing until shortly before his death in 2009. Some of them were reportedly as young as seven or eight years old at the time. According to the complaint, Jackson's father met the children through their father, who worked as general manager at a luxury hotel the pop star frequently visited. Jackson allegedly gained the family's trust through gifts and attention, before isolating the children, giving them alcohol and hard drugs obtained by his staff, and threatening that their family would be "ruined" if they ever said anything.

The Cascio family was part of Jackson's inner circle for many years and described themselves as his "second family." During the 2003 trial in which Jackson was accused of abusing the then thirteen year old Gavin Arvizo, all five siblings and their parents stood firmly behind the singer. He was acquitted. Frank Cascio, the oldest brother who has filed a separate complaint, published a memoir titled My Friend Michael in 2011. According to reporting by The New York Times, it was the 2019 HBO documentary Leaving Neverland that the Cascio siblings say "deprogrammed" them and prompted them to confront the estate with their allegations.

Following the release of Leaving Neverland, the family reached a settlement with Jackson's estate. According to Pitchfork, the amount was approximately sixteen million dollars, to be paid out over five years. Part of that deal involved signing a so called Confidential Acquisition and Consulting Agreement, which included a non disparagement clause and a binding arbitration clause. That clause prohibited the siblings from going to the police or taking the estate to public court. The Cascios now claim they were told it was simply a "life rights" agreement and that the document was in reality designed to silence victims of sexual abuse.

The family had tried to invalidate the arbitration clause by invoking the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2021, a U.S. law that prohibits mandatory arbitration in such cases. Judge Vera rejected that argument, however, because the agreement had already been signed in 2019 and the law does not apply retroactively. Howard King, attorney for the Cascio family, responded with disappointment but said he was not surprised. In a statement he said: "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." Earlier, in March, Frank Cascio's separately filed complaint was also referred to arbitration by another California judge based on the same clause.

Jackson's estate strongly denies the allegations. Attorney Martin Singer previously described the lawsuit as a "desperate money grab" and noted that the family had defended Jackson's innocence for more than twenty five years. A separate lawsuit brought by James Safechuck and Wade Robson, the two men at the center of Leaving Neverland, is scheduled for November of this year, after that case was revived in 2023.