{"id":599198,"date":"2026-05-23T04:12:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T04:12:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/599198\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T04:12:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T04:12:13","slug":"michael-jacksons-estate-calls-accusers-lawsuit-a-shakedown-in-alleged-abuse-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/599198\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Jackson\u2019s Estate Calls Accusers\u2019 Lawsuit a \u2018Shakedown\u2019 in Alleged Abuse Battle"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Michael Jackson<\/a>\u2019s estate is firing back at the late pop star\u2019s former friends, who are suing for alleged sex trafficking … TMZ has learned.<\/p>\n

According to court docs, obtained by TMZ, the estate slammed Edward Cascio<\/a> and his three siblings, who are locked in a legal battle with the estate over claims they were sexually abused by MJ for years in the 1980s.<\/p>\n

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The estate said the Cascios were already paid massive settlements of $3.45M each, and “demanded the incredible sum of $213M in 2024.\u201d<\/p>\n

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In the filing, the estate argued the case should not be heard in public court, insisting the settlement agreement included a valid and enforceable arbitration provision to settle disputes privately.<\/p>\n

Edward and his family believe a recently amended federal law gives them the option of keeping the case in public court.<\/p>\n

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As TMZ previously reported, Edward and his three siblings are locked in a legal battle<\/a> with Michael’s estate — claiming the late pop star sexually abused them for years back in the 1980s. They agreed to a settlement with the Jackson estate a few years ago that pays them nearly $700K each per year.<\/p>\n

However, the Cascios believe Jackson’s side screwed them, so they sued the estate … only for the estate to file a motion seeking to have the case handled out of court because of terms in the earlier settlement agreement they signed.<\/p>\n

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The Cascios\u2019 lawyers argue they can’t be forced into arbitration … because they say a 2021 amendment to the Federal Arbitration Act “renders arbitration agreements invalid and unenforceable, at the election of the complainant, in sexual assault and sexual harassment cases.”<\/p>\n

Since this involves allegations about Jackson sexually abusing kids, the Cascios say they have the right to pursue the case in open court, instead of private arbitration.<\/p>\n

They’re asking a judge to deny the Jackson estate’s motion to compel arbitration of the matter.<\/p>\n

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The Jackson estate’s attorney, Marty Singer<\/a>, has previously called the case a “desperate money grab” — while Cascio attorneys Howard King and Mark Geragos<\/a> say their clients deserve every penny they’re suing for.<\/p>\n

We’ve reached out to the estate about this motion … so far, no word back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael Jackson\u2019s estate is firing back at the late pop star\u2019s former friends, who are suing for alleged…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":599199,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-599198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=599198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/599199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=599198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=599198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=599198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}