The Case Against Michael Jackson: The Psychologist - March 15, 2005: "Doctor who interviewed accuser says Jackson no pedophile; tells cops teenager invoked name of boy who brought 1993 molestation charges
MARCH 15--Michael Jackson 'doesn't really qualify as a pedophile. He's really just this regressed 10-year-old.'
That was the surprising evaluation offered to police by Dr. Stanley Katz, the Los Angeles child psychologist who interviewed the singer's teenage accuser and the boy's brother--and who is expected to soon testify as a government witness at Jackson's molestation trial.
In a taped June 2003 telephone interview, Katz, 55, gave a Santa Barbara sheriff's investigator his 'off the record' opinion of the 46-year-old entertainer. Jackson, Katz told Det. Paul Zelis, 'is a guy that's like a 10-year-old child. And, you know, he's doing what a 10-year-old would do with his little buddies. You know, they're gonna jack off, watch movies, drink wine, you know. And, you know, he doesn't even really qualify as a pedophile. He's really just this regressed 10-year-old.'
'Yeah, yeah, I agree,' replied Zelis.
According to Katz, he twice interviewed Jackson's alleged victim and the teenager's younger brother in his Beverly Hills office, once on May 29, 2003 and again the following month. During those interviews, the younger boy spoke openly of Jackson's alleged illicit behavior, while the older boy broke down when Katz asked whether he had ever been molested by the performer.
It was during these sessions that the older boy surprisingly revealed that he was aware that Jackson had faced prior child abuse allegations (a criminal probe evaporated after an eight-figure civil settlement was struck in 1994 with accuser Jordan Chandler and his family).
Katz told Zelis that it took a lot of time to get the older boy to trust him, noting that he was aided by the child's mother, who 'had to really spell out' that the psychologist was 'helping us, wo"
