“So your father suspected. Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yeah. And he said it in a stern, serious voice, not yelling.”

“Was he speaking to you alone, or – – ”

“Alone.”

“When did this happen?”

“I, like, right before my school graduation.”

“That’s May or June?”

“June.” [June 9, 1993]

“So what did you say then?

“I didn’t. – – He didn’t ask me what did you and Michael do together.”

“By the way, going back, did he say, ‘It’s a secret.'”

“Michael?”

“Yeah. In terms of did he make any threats?”

“I think he may have said, like, if you tell – – if people say ‘Don’t worry, just tell us, Michael will go to jail and nothing will happen to me you.’ He said that wasn’t true, and I could, like, go to juvenile hall or something.”

“That he could go to jail but you’d go to juvenile hall?”

“Something like that.”

“That he himself could go to jail?”

“I don’t specifically remember. I’m almost positive though, that he said about juvenile hall. I’m almost positive he said that, but I do indeed remember that he said that he would go to jail, and that, like, I wouldn’t get off Scott free.”

“Did you believe that?”

“Well, I didn’t really believe it at the time, and I definitely don’t now. But at the time I didn’t really believe it but I said, okay, whatever, and just went along with it.”

“Now let’s see. When your father confronted you at first, what did you say?”

“Well, um, it was an intimidating circumstance, where he was talking to me, and he said, ‘You’ve lied to me, as well as Michael.’ And I said – I was like, fairly nervous. And he said ‘What would you do if I said that I don’t want you to go on the tour.’ Because I was supposed to be on tour with him now. He’s on the tour.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“We were planning on going on the tour. And I said, like, ‘I probably would go anyway because I don’t know of any valid reason you have,’ I said to my dad.”

“You still wanted to go on the tour?”

“Yes, at the time.”

“Why is that?”

“Because I was having fun. At the time, the things Michael was doing to me, they didn’t affect me. Like, I didn’t think anything was totally wrong with what he was doing since he was my friend, and he kept on telling me that he would never hurt me. But presently I see that he was obviously lying.”

“You’re saying you didn’t realize it could hurt you? Is that what you’re – – ”

“I didn’t see anything wrong with it.”

“Do you see the wrong in it now?”

“Of course.”

“What is wrong as you see it?”

“Because he’s a grown-up and he’s using his experience, of his age in manipulating and coercing younger people who don’t have as much experience as him, and don’t have the ability to say no to someone powerful like that. He’s using his power, his experience, his age – his overwhelmingness – to get what he wants.”

“Alright, so, you finally did tell your father. Who was the first adult you told?”

“My father.”

“How many times did he have to ask you before you told him?”

“Once.”

“The first time he asked, you told him?”

“Well see, at the graduation he said, ‘You guys are lying to me,’ and that was it, he didn’t ask me any questions.”

“And what did you say?”

“I just said, ‘Huh?,” like, ‘I didn’t know.'”