Well I'm not exactly defending him either. Lets face it. He was a child in a mans body. Rat brings up a good point. The fact of the matter is, nobody really knows the validity of the charges. Back in the day I looked at him as guilty because of the settlement to make it go away. I was a little naive to the system.
A couple years ago we got dragged into the middle of a civil suit that really had nothing to do with us. We were just a common denominator between the two parties, but non the less we were dragged into the litigation. Someone was looking for a big payday and apparently because we own our own business, have a house on a channel and a Cigarette in the drive way (btw, that was actually brought up in the depositions by their attorney), we made a good target along with the other party. I don't know if you've ever been through litigation, but it's a very long and expensive process that can rack up 10's of thousands in attorney fees just to prove you did no wrong doing. At this point your name has been dragged through the mud and your looking to curb the collateral and monetary damages. We offered to settle just to get out of the mess and the other party got greedy and declined. Eventually it was scheduled for a jury trial at which point the judge reviewing the case called BS on our involvement in the case and wanted our portion settled before it went to trial.
I guess my point is our legal system allows anyone to sue for any BS reason they want and it's up to you to decide how much damage you can weather, how much you want to spend defending your innocents or get out as cheap as you can.
These days after our experience I look at it in a different light. What parent in their right mind allows a small child to spend the night at a mans house no matter who he is. If memory serves me right, didn't they suspect something and still allow the sleep overs? Didn't the allocations come long after the fact? Someone tell me if I'm off tilt here, but something just wasn't right with the whole picture.
I think some one was try'n to be something they weren't by rubbing elbows with an international superstar and got greedy in the end.