On the eve of Michael Jackson’s death, I penned a column for FOX News in Michael Jackson’s defense arguing that he should be remembered for all his charitable accomplishments as opposed to the unproved accusations against him.

“Sure, Jackson was prosecuted twice, and although this reporter can’t acquit him of any charges, he was never convicted of a single crime,” I wrote. “He certainly didn’t deserve the tabloid innuendos that only fueled a toxic fire that was burning his reputation to a cinder in the court of public opinion.”

I stand by that statement, but there’s a difference between tabloid innuendos and facts, and to my surprise it turns out that although the most damning evidence against Jackson is indisputable, Hollywood and the media have paid little attention to it.

Even last week when the FBI released their own files on Jackson, including one report about a pair of Mexican boys that he may have molested in the 1980’s and a British boy who Jackson allegedly had phone sex with in 1979, it made little impact.

I was never a Michael Jackson fan, but I cheered in 2005 when he was acquitted on child molestation charges because his defense lawyer made a convincing argument that he was framed. I assumed that because the alleged victim’s mother seemed extortive, that her story and her son’s story were both lies.

I also convinced myself of what many others had, which is that Michael Jackson was just a strange guy who loved kids and didn’t want to hurt them.

There’s a darker side however, that cannot and should not be ignored even if Hollywood refuses to believe it. I learned about that dark side when I finally investigated the sexual abuse allegations in the wake of Michael Jackson’s death for a national news network earlier this year.

The first thing I discovered was a story reported by journalists Andrew Breitbart and Mark Ebner in their New York Times bestseller, Hollywood Interrupted, an investigative exposé of the entertainment community in Los Angeles.

Apparently, Jackson had a mysterious relationship with Frederick Mark Schaffel, a controversial gay pornographer who had a history of making films with young adult males over in Europe. When Schaffel wasn’t producing gay porn movies however, he had another job here in America – he was Michael Jackson’s personal videographer at Neverland.

When Jackson allegedly first ‘learned’ about Schaffel’s background, he immediately fired the pornographer and issued a public apology that pledged Schaffel would no longer be associating with him. However, a couple of years later Schaffel was allowed to return, and in 2005 he was named by prosecutors as an unindicted co-conspirator in Jackson’s sexual molestation case.

Despite this stunning, contradictory display of hypocrisy, the media never probed into why Michael Jackson hired a gay pornographer – fired him – and then rehired him to film children who were visiting his ranch or why the celebrity superstar was paying such absurd amounts of money to him.

During the 2005 trial it was revealed that Schaffel had apparently signed two checks in the amounts of $500,000 and $1 million to an account that he and Jackson were the only signatories. Schaffel also alleged that Jackson owed him another $3 million for “producing fees.”

No one knows what that money was actually for, but Breitbart and Ebner obtained a source in the Los Angeles pornography world who said that Schaffel, as the authors put it “had a predilection for young-looking performers, preferably straight, who he would recruit in Eastern European countries like Hungary and the Czech Republic for both his personal and professional pleasure.”

Later, I located a source of my own in Hollywood’s gay community who knew Schaffel, and he confirmed that Schaffel had a very suspicious reputation in connection with the films he produced.

The next revelation came while researching the original 1993 sexual abuse accusations made by Jordan Chandler. To my surprise, Chandler wasn’t the only boy whose silence Jackson bought. After Jackson settled with the Chandler’s in 1995 for an estimated $15 million he paid $2 million to another boy named Jason Francia in 1996. Francia’s mother worked at Neverland as a maid from 1987-1991.

All of this time, I had thought Jackson had only settled with one alleged victim, but apparently he had actually settled with two. That also meant that there weren’t only two boys who had accused Jackson of sexual abuse, there were three – Jordan Chandler, Jason Francis and Gavin Arvizo. The recently released FBI files indicate there could be more.

The next day, I found hundreds of blogs reporting that Jordan Chandler admitted he lied and wanted to issue a public apology to Michael Jackson. The story was even reported by an online European news site and for a short time on Wikipedia as well. Apparently, Jackson’s fans weren’t above fabricating lies to clear their hero’s name.

After persistent attempts to contact Chandler’s family to confirm or deny that rumor, I finally reached Jordan’s uncle at his Santa Barbara law office.

“Jordan never recanted any of the allegations he made against Michael Jackson because they are all true,” Ray Chandler told me during a telephone interview. “You know,” he added, “from the very beginning this has been a nightmare for Jordan and the entire Chandler family. Hopefully, now that Jackson has passed away, this will be closure for Jordan – may Michael rest in peace.”

Later, I learned that when both Jordan Chandler and Gavin Arvizo were asked to describe Jackson’s genitalia to law enforcement officials the two boys both gave accurate descriptions. I also read that when the LAPD served their original warrant on Neverland in 1993, police found children’s games and books in Jackson’s bedroom along with pictorial books featuring photographs of naked boys. Police said that it was common to find children’s books and toys in pedophiles bedrooms because they help lure innocent children.

What really interested police however, was a special indoor alarm – the only one of its kind in the entire Neverland ranch – connected to Jackson’s bedroom hallway to alert him if someone was approaching his door.  One veteran LAPD detective who investigated nearly 4,000 sexual abuse cases said he believed the alarm was installed because Jackson was doing something in his bedroom he didn’t want anyone to know anything about.

Finally, I learned from Ray Chandler that when Jordan Chandler’s father, Evan, confronted Jackson face to face about sexually molesting his son, the singer reportedly didn’t take offense to the stinging accusation or even deny it. He simply smiled and in a soft, childlike tone and said, “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

In other words, Jackson never denied he had sex with the 10-year old – he just didn’t believe he did anything wrong. There’s a big difference between the two.

These stories are not tabloid tales based on flimsy sources, but rather true facts, most of which Jackson brought upon himself by paying off his accusers and permitting sexual deviants to have access to the children he invited to his home. Still, the media hasn’t breathed a word of any of this since the pop-star passed away.

Instead, Democratic Congresswoman Shelia Jackson Lee reminded the nation during Jackson’s funeral service that everyone is always innocent until proven guilty. But anyone who is honest knows that just because someone isn’t proven guilty in court does not mean they’re innocent in the real world. If that were true, then O.J. Simpson would be innocent too.

Back in July when I listened to Lee tell her audience that she was proposing a Congressional resolution that would name Jackson as a “great humanitarian,” I wondered how his alleged victims – and any other victim of child molestation felt at that moment. Perhaps in the midst of showing our reverence for Michael Jackson, I thought we should all take a moment of silence to show our consideration for them too.

Michael Jackson copped a plea in Hollywood’s court of public opinion that he was just an unusual guy who never grew up and loved kids and as the judge and jury many of us accepted that plea because we didn’t want to believe the alternative. I ended my original l column by saying that, “Michael Jackson deserves an accurate place in history.”

I stand by that statement.

Coincidentally, I was living in Encino, California in 1993. The Jackson family lived not far from me. I would see Joe Jackson at the supermarket or Randy at the car wash. But I never expected to meet Michael. About once a week I would go over the hill to Golden Apple Comics on Melrose. It was owned by a friend, the late Bill Liebowitz, and I also had a bunch of friends who worked there. They told me Michael was a big customer. He would go there with a group of kids and buy them whatever they wanted. He would often spend thousands on those days.

I asked one of my friends if Michael bought any comics for himself. He said sure. So I said what kind of books does he read? He said “Anything with kids in them.” I remember thinking: “Brrr!” at the time.

Sure, that could be innocent and all, but there were all those stories even then of Michael having kids with him all the time. Which is kind of odd for a grown man, but Michael Jackson was never known for being normal.

Everyone I know who knew him said he was a very nice guy, kind of quiet and he did a lot with charity. No one had a bad thing to say about him. But I did detect a certain reluctant vibe when discussing Michael with my friends at the store. They didn’t say why, but they felt he was weird. And this is from people who worked at a store on Melrose in L.A.

So one day I came in the store and one of my friends told me Jackson was in the store. And there he was, over by the comics rack. He had his arm around someone like he was on a date. That someone was Jordy Chandler.

I walked over to the long racks and pretended not to notice them. Jackson had his people with him including his driver. That driver was later a witness against Jackson in his trial.

Jackson was whispering in Jordy’s ear and they were acting totally like people on a date. It was not the kind of behavior a couple of straight guys do together. Then they went back in the store in the employee area and disappeared. They were gone for a half hour. I stuck around and talked to my friends, just shooting the breeze. I assumed Jackson left by the back door to avoid people. But Bill the owner asked me if I wanted to meet Michael Jackson, and I said, sure.

Jackson reappeared, and left the store. I went out there with Bill and he introduced me. Jordy had detached from Michael and went to the black SUV. I didn’t shake hands with Jackson, I only got to exchange pleasantries. But I noticed something, when I tried to look him in the eyes, he had this very evasive…almost crazed look. Like someone who had just committed a crime and didn’t want anyone to see them. It was weird.

I’ve met a lot of famous celebs and have never seen them as anything other than people. People who work in the entertainment industry, which I was doing at the time myself. So I’ve been very laid back in these encounters. So I know it was nothing I did that made him look at me like that. I thought, “Man, is he paranoid or what? Maybe he’s on something.”

After they took off, I went back in the store to buy some comics and I asked one of my friends what they were doing in the back room for so long. He said Michael and Jordy were in the bathroom for a half hour.

Yeah.

I said, huh? He said that’s not unusual for him.

Now, I don’t know what they did in there, but it was a small one-person bathroom. And I can only think of a couple reasons two people would go into a small bathroom together. One of the nice reasons is they were helping the other with their costumes. He wasn’t wearing anything that out of the ordinary. So that leaves the other two reasons, since we can assume Jordy is potty trained at 13. Sex or drugs.

When the story about the molestation broke a few months later, that pretty much made up my mind which reason it was.

A lot of people say Michael Jackson did not molest kids. Maybe not. But I have a hard time believing it.

Everyone I know, who worked with Michael had great things to say about him, so I suppose he wasn’t a bad person. But if you have followed his story closely, he was no saint either. He actively worked to insure his brothers would never succeed. He reneged on deals constantly and didn’t pay people he owed their money.

There will be a lot of stories coming out about him and his defenders will work hard to try to canonize him. But the truth is a lot more complex.