
John says last Thursday’s guilty verdict, in which a Michigan couple was convicted of trying to blackmail him, doesn’t erase the sadness of the situation. “To be honest with you, nobody won,” John says. “It wasn’t like I was jumping up and down. It was a tragedy, you know? I mean, I went into it because the government asked me to be a witness. I wasn’t on trial. I got caught up in some bizarre trip that happened six years ago… I [was] doing what was asked of me. There was a federal crime and I got subpoenaed and I said, ‘Damn right, I’m gonna go. I’m gonna fight for the truth!’”
So was he nervous? “Never for one minute, I wasn’t scared …Even when they were preparing me for the witness stand, I said, ‘I’m just gonna go up there and tell the truth’ because…I mean they barely even prepped me! They said, ‘Just tell what you know. Tell what happened.’ So, when I got in the courtroom and there’s hundreds of people, and all of a sudden, this woman who I’ve never seen before in my life, this Sarah Henderson, gets up and starts spewing maybe the most hateful stuff that’s ever been said about me in my life, my heart just sunk into my stomach like, ‘Oh my god!’ And then when I found out that they were allowed to print these lies, like this Associated Press guy was feverously, you know, writing everything. I mean, literally I went home from the hotel and every muscle and bone and fiber of my body was sick.”
John says the hardest part of the whole experience was the attack on his character. “I’ve worked so hard my whole life, especially my last 27 years in the business, and it’s important to me to be a stand up guy, you know? Because that’s how my father was, and that’s the way he taught me. And in a matter of 20 minutes, in an opening statement, to have all that ripped away from you, is just absolutely…heartbreaking is the only word I could use. So, do I feel vindicated? I guess. I just wish none of it would have happened. Clearly, those kids didn’t win. The justice system proved right, but this costs millions of dollars, and the town of Marquette didn’t win.”
Still, the man we once knew as Uncle Jesse says he’s so grateful for the fans’ unwavering support—including those who showed up outside the courthouse to cheer him on. “The support was beautiful. It’s so nice to see that people are on my side, you know?”
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Posted Tuesday, July 20th, 2010 at 7:07am
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