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FEBRUARY 17--In addition to valuable items of evidence seized from Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch, investigators also hit paydirt while executing search warrants at the home of a business associate of the singer and the Beverly Hills office of a private investigator working for Jackson, according to sealed court records reviewed by TSG.
Simultaneous with the November 2003 raid of Jackson's estate, detectives searched the office of P.I. Bradley Miller, who was retained by Jackson's handlers in the immediate wake of the February 2003 broadcast of Martin Bashir's documentary "Living with Michael Jackson." As alleged in the warrant for the search of Miller's South Beverly Drive office suite, the investigator played a central role in the alleged conspiracy to intimidate and falsely imprison Jackson's teenage accuser and his family.
 Inside Miller's office, detectives discovered two tapes containing surveillance footage of the boy and his family, video shot after they unexpectedly left Neverland in mid-February 2003 (they would return in a few days) and in mid-March, after the family departed Jackson's estate for good. The video was shot on multiple dates and as early as 4:48 one morning, according to a time stamp on the footage. The surveillance camera recorded the accuser, his mother, brother, and sister, the children's grandfather, and the mother's boyfriend.
For investigators, the surveillance videos provided key corroboration of the family's claims that they were stalked and harassed by Jackson representatives after bolting Neverland. Prosecutors contend that Jackson's henchmen tailed the family due to concerns that they might contact law enforcement agents, child welfare officials, or journalists.
In fact, when a Santa Barbara grand jury indicted Jackson on a felony conspiracy charge related to alleged child abduction, false imprisonment, and extortion, one of the 28 "overt acts" cited in the indictment dealt exclusively with the surveillances.
The videos, though, were not the only valuable tape found in Miller's office. Detectives also discovered a 15-minute audio recording of a phone conversation between Jackson aide Frank Cascio and the alleged victim's mother. Cascio placed the call--which was recorded illegally--after the woman and her children left Neverland in the middle of the night around February 12, 2003.
During the call, Cascio urged the woman to return to Jackson's home in light of purported threats against her family. "I'm worried about you and the protection. Because there's a lot of evil people out there right now," Cascio claimed. "And that's why even staying another night alone is not safe." Investigators contend that the Jackson camp fabricated these threats in a bid to lure the family back behind Neverland's gates, in part so that they would participate in the filming of a video rebuttal to the devastating Bashir documentary.
Cascio remarked that Jackson, "was just so worried about you," adding later that he was seeking to shield her family "and to protect Michael. Because we have been in this situation many times...And you know what? It ends up hurting the kids. And we don't want, and Michael does not want [the alleged victim] to be hurt."
In June 2003, when the accuser's family began meeting with Santa Barbara detectives, each of them talked about being threatened by Jackson's German business managers, Dieter Wiesner and Ronald Konitzer. Each told cops that the men pressured them to participate in the rebuttal production, and the mother told investigators that she actually feared Wiesner. These contentions appear to be corroborated by the mother's talk--recorded four months earlier--with Cascio. "We left because those Germans," she said. "Those people terrify me, Frank. They were threatening."
During the taped conversation, Cascio also made a pitch for her to do an interview for Jackson's Bashir rebuttal. "We'd love for you to go on tape and just say something beautiful about Michael." The woman replied, "Not with those Germans. Because they were trying to dictate to me what, exactly what to say."
During his summation last year to the grand jury that later indicted Jackson, prosecutor Gordon Auchincloss called the surreptitiously recorded tape "such a powerful and important piece of evidence. I can't emphasize it enough." The sixth overt act listed in the indictment's conspiracy count is based on the illegally recorded phone conversation. In addition, overt act 23 alleges, in part, that Jackson used eavesdropping equipment to "personally monitor" the woman's Neverland telephone conversations.
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 Two months after the searches at Neverland and Miller's office, investigators raided the $2 million Calabasas home of Marc Schaffel, a close Jackson aide who, before meeting the singer, made his fortune in the porno movie industry. Prosecutors allege that Schaffel, named an unindicted coconspirator in the Jackson indictment, served as sort of a paymaster in connection with the plot to imprison the family--and then ship them off to Brazil.
Led by Detective Craig Bonner, investigators zeroed in on a locked bedroom closet that Schaffel used as a document storage area. Inside, were about seven four-drawer file cabinets, numerous boxes, and shelves on which documents were piled. As investigators examined the material, it became apparent that Schaffel was a fastidious record keeper and that many documents--e-mails, handwritten notes, receipts, model releases, financial ledgers--referred to the Jackson organization's "handling" of the accuser and his family during the one-month period prosecutors allege they were falsely imprisoned against their will.
According to an investigative report, one document recovered by detectives was titled "[Mother's first name] Strategies." Evidence item #1302 "posed five possible problems which could be associated with [the woman] and the manner in which the problems could be addressed, so as to benefit and/or protect Michael Jackson. The scenarios included conflicts arising from the Bashir film, [the woman] claiming she was threatened, [the woman] being sexually assaulted, [the woman] being promised things, and [the woman] being given money."
Other records seized referred to financial aspects of the Jackson camp's involvement with the accuser's family. One note written by Schaffel answered a request for a cash advance by a Jackson employee by noting that he first needed to "get the 'vacation' for [the accuser] and his family taken care of immediately." A receipt for $1000 provided to Cascio noted that the money was also for "vacation" expenses. The quotes around the word vacation on the Schaffel documents are a clear indication that Jackson aides regarded the family's planned Brazilian as more of an exile than a holiday.
 Other documents seized recorded the payment of passport and visa fees for the family. A detailed cash ledger listed expenses incurred "for [the woman] and kids," including small purchases at stores like Banana Republic, Levis, and Robinsons-May, and restaurants like Sbarro, Johnny Rockets, and Hot Dog on a Stick. Investigators even found a March 10, 2003 ledger entry for a lunch tab in the cafeteria at Kaiser Hospital in Hollywood. Submitted by Vincent Amen, Cascio's sidekick, the bill helps partially corroborate one of the Jackson indictment's most bizarre overt acts (#26 to be exact). For additional details, read "Urine Trouble," published here last month.
One Schaffel folder was labeled "Fires Brewing-PR" and contained an assortment of e-mails on topics ranging from a supposed tell-all biography being prepared by actor Corey Feldman, a former Jackson pal, to Konitzer's thoughts on the activities of a crisis management team. Elsewhere, detectives found faxed copies of model releases for the accuser and his family that were sent to Schaffel by Jackson lawyer David LeGrand. These were needed in advance of the family's filming of the rebuttal interview, questions for which were jointly crafted by Schaffel, LeGrand, and Christian Robinson, a Schaffel associate.
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