A recently surfaced photograph reveals a troubling scene of Michael Jackson holding a young boy who appears visibly uncomfortable. The image, first published by the Daily Mail, shows a nine-year-old Dominic Cascio grimacing as Jackson wraps an arm around him, placing his hand on the child’s stomach and arm.
The photo, believed to be taken in January 1996 in a hotel room, depicts a moment that Dominic’s family alleges is part of a period during which Jackson abused the young boy. Dominic, now an adult, recalls the unsettling feelings associated with revisiting this image.
Dominic and his siblings, Edward, Aldo, and Marie-Nicole Porte, have initiated legal action against Jackson’s companies and estate. Their lawsuit accuses Jackson of being a “serial child predator,” claiming he sexually assaulted them, with some incidents occurring when the children were as young as seven or eight years old.
Dominic, now 45, shared with the Daily Mail that looking back at the photograph evokes deeply disturbing emotions.
Now 45, Dominic told the Daily Mail revisiting the image is deeply unsettling.
‘I can only imagine the face had to do with what I had experienced at the moment,’ he said – a time, he suggests, where fear and confusion were already beginning to surface.
Michael Jackson sits with nine-year-old Dominic Cascio in what the Cascio family believes is a hotel room in 1996. Dominic now says the image reflects the ‘fear and confusion’ he was experiencing at the time
In another disturbing image, Dominic is seen sitting on Jackson during a 1996 trip to Brazil – the now 45-year-old says looking back at the image is ‘haunting’
‘I assume I was really trying to process or make sense of whatever trauma I was undergoing.
‘I can see the fear and confusion of what I was living.’
The lawsuit was filed at a federal court in Los Angeles and claims that Jackson drugged, raped and sexually assaulted each of the plaintiffs.
The alleged abuse went on for ‘extended periods’ at locations around the world, the lawsuit claims.
The complaint states that Jackson, who died in 2009, ‘brainwashed’ the Cascio children and made them sign ‘deceptive’ contracts to keep them quiet.
Lawyers for Jackson’s estate have previously dismissed the claims as a ‘desperate money grab’ and pointed out that the Cascio family were supportive of Jackson for years.
The Cascio family first met Jackson in 1984 when Dominic, their father, managed Helmsley Palace in New York, a midtown hotel where the singer often stayed when in the city.
Dominic took care of Jackson’s special requests, such as the installation of a dance floor in his suite, and then introduced him to his family.
That included his sons Frank, who was five, and Edward, who was three.
As Dominic and his wife Connie’s friendship with Jackson deepened, the boys and their three siblings began staying at his Neverland Ranch in California without their parents.
The Cascios even stayed close after Jordy Chandler accused Jackson of sexual abuse in 1993: the singer settled out of court for $23 million.
The photos obtained by the Daily Mail mostly date from three years later, in 1996.
Jackson with a young Aldo Cascio at the family home in the late 1990s – one of several images now cited in a lawsuit against the singer’s estate
A polaroid shot shared with the Daily Mail shows Edward Cascio posing with the singer – who is in his famous black fedora – at the Cascio family home in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey
One shows Dominic in a white t-shirt covered in food stains. He is smiling as Jackson holds him on his lap with an anxious look in his eyes.
Dominic is putting his fingers above Jackson’s head, giving him ‘rabbit ears’ as he knows a photo is about to be taken.
The photo is understood to have been taken in February 1996 in Brazil during the video shoot for Jackson’s song They Don’t Care About Us, which appeared on his album, HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I.
Jackson’s t-shirt is the same one he wears during the music video. Dominic was nine years old at the time.
The second photo is understood to have been taken a month before, in January 1996. The location is uncertain but the Cascio family believe it was a hotel room in New York.
Jackson’s blotchy skin shows clearly that he was suffering from vitiligo, a condition which causes the skin to lose pigment in patches.
Michael Jackson eats with members of the Cascio family, who for decades occupied a place at the heart of the singer’s inner circle
Aldo Cascio previously spoke out in an interview with Daphne Barak that aired on March 1
In his statement Dominic said the photos ‘bring a very wide array of emotions for me.’
He said: ‘I feel sorrow, because I know the child in that picture had seen and experienced things that no child should ever have to go through.
‘I feel anger, because having children myself I can’t handle thinking of anyone possibly doing something like this to them.
‘Ruining their childhood, taking from them that carefree innocence. I feel helplessness because every day I have to work on overcoming the consequences that stem from something I had no choice on, and because I was truly so deceived and scared, that telling anyone who possibly could have helped, didn’t seem like an option.’
One of the other two photos of Jackson is with Dominic’s brother Edward. It was taken at the Cascio family home in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey, in January 1996.
Edward, 13, sits next to the singer in a V-neck t-shirt, while Jackson wears his signature black fedora.
Jackson pleaded not guilty went on trial at Santa Maria Superior Court in 2005, charged with seven counts of child molestation. He could have faced up to 20 years in prison if convicted but was acquitted on all counts
Edward’s hair is messy. Jackson looks out of the top of his eyes and bites his finger, as if surprised at the photo being taken.
The fourth photograph shows Jackson and Aldo Cascio, Dominic’s brother, also at the Cascio family home.
It was taken around 1998 when Aldo was around seven.
Jackson is dressed all in black with his fedora and sunglasses, as if he has just walked off stage.
He is holding up Aldo with his right arm and putting his left hand awkwardly on the boy’s naked torso.
Aldo is wearing only a tiny pair of red and blue underpants.
In an interview with the Daily Mail in February, Aldo Cascio, now 35, gave his account of the alleged abuse by Jackson in a tearful and emotional interview.
He said: ‘I was just sitting on the bed with him during the day, playing my Game Boy.
‘And I remember he just went to me and pulled down my shorts.’
The abuse would allegedly continue for 25 years, from the 1980s until Jackson’s death in 2009.
Howard King, the Los Angeles-based attorney who is representing the Cascio family, told the Daily Mail the images of the Cascio children show ‘prisoners of a mental and physical abuser.’
He said: ‘This lawsuit will finally put an end to the hundreds of millions of dollars income enjoyed by the estate advisors who continue to lie and perpetuate a false narrative that Michael was just an innocent man child who wouldn’t harm a flea.
‘I hope the case will show the Cascios are not the liars the estate attempts to portray them as but a close knit and brave family belatedly coming to terms with the demons that continue to haunt them as a result of decades of the most horrible sexual abuse imaginable.’
All four of the siblings plus their brother Frank had filed a similar case at the Los Angeles Superior Court but last month a judge ruled that it had to be settled by arbitration.
At the time, Marty Singer, the lawyer for the Jackson estate said: ‘For decades, Frank Cascio and his siblings consistently and repeatedly insisted that Michael Jackson never harmed them or anyone else. That includes their statements lauding Michael in a nationally televised interview with Oprah Winfrey (in 2010) which directly contradicts what they are claiming now.’
Singer said that the Cascio family had demanded $213 million and threatened to go public unless they were paid the money.
Singer did not respond to requests for comment on the ongoing case.
