Michael Jackson "Second Fam"They Now Say He Sexually Abused Them

The Cascio siblings: from left, Dominic, Aldo, Marie Nicole and Eddie.Credit...The New York Times

By Matt Stevens

Reporting from Greenville, S.C.

2010

 

In December 2010, Oprah Winfrey invited Dominic and Connie Cascio and three of their five children onto her talk show to discuss Michael Jackson.

The pop star and Dominic, a manager of a Manhattan hotel where Mr. Jackson often stayed, had become good friends. For more than two decades, Mr. Jackson had eaten at the Cascios’ New Jersey home, brought them to his Neverland Ranch, took them along on tours around the world and celebrated with them on holidays.

The Cascios had become, as they often said, Mr. Jackson’s “second family.”

So a year and a half after Mr. Jackson’s death, the family came forward to talk to Oprah at length about their special relationship — and also to shield their friend from the ugly sexual abuse accusations that had long trailed him.

“Were there ever any improprieties with you and Michael Jackson?” Ms. Winfrey asked the Cascio siblings, Eddie, Frank and Marie Nicole, who were now adults, at the interview. 

They responded in unison: “Never.” They each shook their heads.

Their friend Michael, Eddie asserted, “was a target.”

More than 15 years later, the Cascios now say that was a lie. All five of the Cascio children say they were groomed to protect Mr. Jackson and became, as they call it, his “soldiers” — the front line of his defense.

Four of the five siblings now say in a lawsuit and in an interview with The New York Times that, in fact, Mr. Jackson had repeatedly sexually assaulted each of them. (The fifth sibling told The Times he was abused, but for legal reasons, his lawyers say he cannot join his siblings’ suit.)

Some of the siblings say they recognized at an early age that Mr. Jackson’s behavior was wrong but felt too overwhelmed by his celebrity and signs of affection to come forward publicly, or to one another. Others say they did not recognize that what had happened to them was abusive until they watched a 2019 documentary containing allegations by two men who said Mr. Jackson had molested them. 

A man in a plaid shirt.

Aldo Cascio is one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against Michael Jackson’s estate.Credit...The New York Times

Aldo, now 35, said he was around 7 and in bed with Mr. Jackson one day, playing a Game Boy, when Mr. Jackson began giving him oral sex. He said the sex acts continued for years, and he eventually became aware that what he was enduring was wrong. But he said he so convinced himself that he could never disclose it that he came to believe: “I’m just going to live to die.” 

Court documents say the abuse happened at a variety of places, including Mr. Jackson’s home, on trips and during tour stops. Just days before the pop star died in 2009, Aldo said, Mr. Jackson requested they go to “Disneyland” — a which he described as a coded request for sex.

Mr. Jackson and, since his death, the Jackson estate have consistently denied all allegations that the pop star molested children. Marty Singer, a lawyer for the estate, characterized the lawsuit as “a desperate money grab.”

“The family staunchly defended Michael Jackson for more than 25 years, attesting to his innocence of inappropriate conduct,” Mr. Singer said in a statement. “This new court filing is a transparent forum-shopping tactic in their scheme to obtain hundreds of millions of dollars from Michael’s estate and companies.”

Debate over the truth of Mr. Jackson’s life has been revived not just by the lawsuit, but also by a biopic, “Michael,” set to debut on Friday. The film, which is expected to have a sequel and was produced in partnership with the estate, ends in 1988, before the first of the allegations surfaced.

Years before filing their lawsuit, the Cascio siblings told the estate that, actually, they had been abused by Mr. Jackson. But the parties reached an agreement in 2020 and the siblings received, in total, roughly $16 million in payments over five years. The accusations were never aired. In the estate’s view, Mr. Jackson’s family avoided being confronted by more “false allegations.” 

But the payments ended in 2025 as the siblings were seeking additional compensation, and negotiations became strained. Now what was once a quiet dispute has erupted into bitter litigation.

A man with his arms spread out to either side in a white shirt and dark pants.

Mr. Jackson and his estate have said that none of accusations made against him by people who say they were sexually abused are true.Credit...Steve Granitz/WireImage

Four Siblings, Now Plaintiffs

In an interview this month, the Cascio siblings suing the Jackson estate each provided grim details of what they say they endured.

Marie Nicole Porte, now 37, said she was 12 the first time Mr. Jackson abused her inside her family home, where he stayed for months following the Sept. 11 attacks. Mr. Jackson, she said, would have her spread her legs and sometimes masturbated while looking at her naked.

Dominic, 39, said he was on a trip to Euro Disney with Mr. Jackson when he was about 8 years old when the pop star began having them lie nude in bed together. In later encounters, he said, Mr. Jackson would have him suck and manipulate his nipples while Mr. Jackson masturbated.

The Cascio family’s relationship with Mr. Jackson led its members, by their accounts, into a world of closely guarded secrets. None of the children told their parents or one another what was happening, they said. When their parents did ask about their relationship with Jackson, the children said they denied that anything untoward had occurred. 

The parents, Connie and Dominic, declined to be interviewed through the family’s lawyer, Howard King. But in a prior interview they described a mix of feelings — betrayal, remorse and responsibility — for what their children say they encountered.

“I should have known, and I didn’t,” Connie told GB News last month. “Honestly, God knows, I didn’t.”

Why did the children stay quiet? Several said that Mr. Jackson stressed to them that their relationship with him was special, the only one like it, and that if anyone found out, his life — and their lives, too — would be destroyed.

“We were brainwashed, we were groomed,” said Eddie, who said that Mr. Jackson, whom he described as “the biggest star in the world,” taught the siblings to defend the popstar against the allegations.

But the siblings said that in 2019, after they watched the “Leaving Neverland” documentary about Mr. Jackson, they were struck by how closely the allegations of child abuse in the film matched their own experiences.

Various family photos in a collage. 

Family photographs captured some of the settings in which the Cascio children interacted with Mr. Jackson over more than a decade.Credit...The New York Times

Aldo was the first to approach his family to say he had been abused. A few days later, Dominic, the son, said he told Eddie that Aldo was telling the truth — because it had happened to him. Eddie said he then also came forward. And finally Marie Nicole. 

“I felt like he took my manhood away,” Eddie, 43, said in the interview, beginning to cry. He said he had sexual encounters with Mr. Jackson into adulthood. But when they began, he said his penis was so small that Mr. Jackson held it using only three fingers.

The Cascio siblings began meeting with representatives of the estate in 2019, according to court documents. And eventually, after they shared “explicit details about Jackson’s abuse,” the court papers say, the estate eventually agreed to pay each plaintiff what the family called “the wholly inadequate sum of five annual payments of approximately $690,000.” Lawyers for the estate say in their own filing that it “reluctantly” entered into the agreement “to prevent Michael’s family, particularly his children, from having to be subjected to any further false allegations.”

But as the payments were nearing their end in 2024, the estate says in court papers that one of the siblings, Frank, through his lawyer, had demanded that he and his brothers and sister be paid $213 million more, and that he had threatened to file a “bogus public lawsuit.”

Frank said in an interview that he too was abused. But because he is involved in an arbitration proceeding with the estate over the original agreement and other matters, his lawyer said Frank was barred from being a party to the federal lawsuit filed by his siblings.

Mr. Singer said that all of the siblings were involved in the pending arbitration proceeding and that their lawsuit is an effort to try to evade their obligation, under the prior agreement, to arbitrate any disputes. The estate plans to ask the court to dismiss the federal case or to put it on hold while the arbitration goes forward.

Asked to address the specific accusations leveled by each of the siblings, Mr. Singer said: “The Cascios are the epitome of unreliable sources. Their stories have repeatedly shifted and changed to suit whatever their current agenda happens to be.” 

Bringing Home a Pop Star

When Mr. Jackson stayed at the Helmsley Palace in Manhattan in the 1980s, it was Dominic Cascio, the general manager of the towers and the suites, who took care of him. Their friendship built to the point where one night, Jackson showed up at their home in Hawthorne, N.J.

Frank later recounted the evening in a fawning book, “My Friend Michael: An Ordinary Friendship With an Extraordinary Man,” in which he repeatedly denied that Mr. Jackson ever acted inappropriately with children. “My brother and I sprang out of bed to greet him,” Frank wrote of himself and Eddie.

Mr. Jackson would visit the home many more times, helping their mother clean and enjoying her turkey dinners, Frank wrote. The Cascios sat on the side of the stage at Mr. Jackson’s concerts. They had a sleepover at F.A.O. Schwarz. Mr. Jackson covered these expenses and the family installed a phone line at their home just for him.

By 1993, the Cascios had begun to visit with Mr. Jackson at Neverland, his estate in Santa Barbara County that was outfitted with a movie theater, a zoo and even amusement park rides. Frank and Eddie were later permitted to go alone, Frank wrote in his book.

A large home with amusement park rides on its grounds.

Mr. Jackson’s Neverland Ranch, where each of the Cascio siblings said in court papers that they were sexually assaulted. Credit...Steve Starr/Corbis, via Getty Images 

“He made us feel like he was everything: a friend, father, like every sort of emotional support,” Eddie said in the interview. “And he was.” 

When Mr. Jackson was accused of molestation by the family of a 13-year-old boy in the 1990s, Frank recalled in his book how, he, Eddie and their father flew to join him on tour in Tel Aviv in a sign of support. When their father had to return home, he allowed his sons to stay. Eddie says now that it was the time when Mr. Jackson first began to molest him.

A year later, in 1994, Mr. Jackson reached a roughly $23 million civil settlement with the boy’s family that had accused him of molestation. Mr. Jackson denied any wrongdoing.

A decade after that, prosecutors in Santa Barbara County brought charges against Mr. Jackson that included several new counts of child molesting and serving alcohol to minors. “All bullshit,” Frank wrote. “These people were after Michael’s money.”

Frank recalled in the book that he went on “20/20” and “Good Morning America” to defend Mr. Jackson. The rest of the family flew to California to testify on the singer’s behalf, the siblings said, but once they got there, they were told they were not needed.

Following a 14-week trial, Mr. Jackson was acquitted by a jury.

After Mr. Jackson died, some of the Cascios profited from their relationships with him. In addition to revenues from his book, Frank sold Jackson memorabilia. Eddie sold the rights to three songs known as the “Cascio tracks” that were said to have been recorded in the basement of the Cascios’ home in 2007.

A woman in glasses looking to her left.

Marie Nicole Porte joined three of her brothers at an interview in South Carolina where each sibling described their experiences with Mr. Jackson. Credit...Will Crooks for The New York Times 

The demos were included by Sony Music in an album released after Mr. Jackson’s death. But their authenticity came under scrutiny, and Sony Music removed the tracks in 2022 amid a court battle. It ended in a settlement with the defendants, including Sony, the Jackson estate and Eddie, according to court documents.

Sony and the estate did not concede that the songs had been sung by an impersonator, as had been contended, but said that removing them was “the simplest and best way to move beyond the conversation associated with these tracks once and for all.”

When the siblings saw the “Leaving Neverland” documentary, they were suddenly “deprogrammed,” their lawsuit says — forced to confront the reality of their experiences with Mr. Jackson. Released by HBO in 2019, the film focused on the accounts of two men — Wade Robson and James Safechuck — who came forward with separate lawsuits a few years after Mr. Jackson’s death that accused him of having abused them as children.

The Jackson estate denied all of the allegations and sued the network. Court documents show that the case was dismissed in 2024 after what a spokesman for HBO described as an amicable resolution. Civil cases for both Mr. Robson and Mr. Safechuck are ongoing in Los Angeles.

After the documentary’s release, the Cascios say in court papers that representatives of the estate sought them out, falsely representing that they were trying to help get them fair compensation “for the suffering Jackson had caused.” This, they said, led to the settlement agreement that involved the annual payments.

The Cascio lawsuit says that two years ago, the estate’s representatives began discussing the possibility of additional compensation and “further arrangements to ensure plaintiffs’ continued silence.” 

But the lawsuit says that, after the siblings hired lawyers and demanded more compensation, the estate and its representatives started leaking “false and defamatory statements” saying that the estate was being blackmailed by the siblings.

The estate’s court filings present a starkly different narrative. They paint the Cascios as opportunists who are seeking to extort the estate by lying about Mr. Jackson’s alleged abuse. The siblings are said to have used the negative publicity of “Leaving Neverland” as an opening to “repudiate their prior support of Michael and manufacture false and specious allegations against him unless they were paid money.”

The Cascios say that, actually, their goals now are about more than money — they are about telling the truth about Mr. Jackson to the world and to some they hold close.

Like Eddie’s daughter, who is 16 and was born just months after Mr. Jackson’s death. For years, she too lived under the impression that the pop star had been a great friend to the family.

After all, her middle name is “Michael.”