Skip to main content
CNN.com International
The Web    CNN.com      Powered by
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
ON TV
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Law
The Michael Jackson Trial

Accuser's mom alleges scheme to detain family

Jackson said her son was in danger, she testifies


more videoVIDEO
The stepfather of Michael Jackson's accuser takes the stand.

A former accuser's mother says Jackson begged to share her son's bed.

Witnesses bring new allegations against Michael Jackson.
SPECIAL REPORT
YOUR E-MAIL ALERTS
Michael Jackson
Trials

SANTA MARIA, California (CNN) -- Michael Jackson and his associates convinced the mother of the teenager at the center of the singer's child-molestation trial that her family was in danger to detain them in Miami, the accuser's mother testified Wednesday.

In one of the most anticipated testimonies in the trial, the mother detailed what she said was an elaborate damage-control scheme by the singer's entourage after her son appeared in a February 2003 television documentary holding hands with the pop star. Part of the Jackson camp's scheme, the woman testified, was to convince her that her family was in danger after the documentary was broadcast.

The woman said she was repeatedly told that helping with the damage-control operation was necessary to "appease the killers" who were threatening the family.

She also tearfully told jurors that on a flight from Miami to California after the documentary was broadcast, she saw Jackson licking her son on the head -- but did not confront him about the behavior.

"I thought I was seeing things. ... I thought it was just me," she said. "I was never going to tell nobody."

Through her tears, she pleaded, "Please don't judge me."

The 46-year-old Jackson is accused of molesting the boy -- now 15 -- at his Neverland Ranch, giving him alcohol and conspiring to hold him and his family captive in 2003.

Jackson has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The mother's emotional, sometimes rambling testimony about her family's relationship with Jackson began Wednesday after Santa Barbara County Superior Court Judge Rodney Melville ruled she could avoid answering questions about alleged welfare fraud, without being forced to invoke her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in front of the jury.

The fraud allegations, which are being investigated by the Los Angeles County district attorney's office, stem from welfare payments the mother received between October 2001 and March 2003, after she was awarded a $100,000 settlement in a lawsuit against J.C. Penney Co. That time period includes much of the time the family spent with Jackson.

The mother testified Wednesday that she never signed a release allowing her children to be filmed for a television documentary by British journalist Martin Bashir -- and did not know they had been included in the program until several months later, after it was broadcast on British television in February 2003.

After that broadcast, she said, Jackson called her from Miami to tell her that the accuser was in danger "and there had to be a press conference." He said the boy "was receiving death threats," and Jackson wanted to bring him to Florida for protection, she said.

The mother said she insisted that she and her other two children also make the trip.

Once in Miami, staying at a resort with Jackson, she said, he told her that he loved them, they were "family" and "he's going to take of us, protect us from the killers."

No news conference was held during the family's stay in Miami. The prosecution alleges that the trip was a ruse to keep them from seeing the documentary when it was broadcast in the United States.

Mother terrified of 'the Germans'

The mother testified she left Jackson's room on the night the program was broadcast and went downstairs to her own room to see it. A short time later, she said, her daughter called her and told her "Michael was angry," and she returned to his room without viewing the broadcast.

She also said she was "terrified" of two Jackson associates -- Ronald Konitzer and Dieter Weizner -- whom she referred to as "the Germans." She said they rebuffed her requests to know what was going on, dismissing her as "stupid." The mother said Konitzer also told her "he could have me erased."

She also said Jackson told her to "do everything Ronald and Dieter tell you."

Konitzer and Weizner were named as unindicted co-conspirators in the criminal case against Jackson, accused of conspiring with the singer to intimidate and control the family and keep them against their will in the weeks after the documentary.

At the conclusion of the family's stay in Miami, the mother testified, she was told that her children would be returning on a plane with Jackson, while she would take a different flight the next day. After she began crying and pleading with one of Jackson's security guards, she said, she was told she could come on the same flight as her children if she would "stay quiet."

It was on that flight that she testified she saw Jackson licking her son's head.

After landing in California, she said, the family was taken to Neverland. When she expressed a desire to go home, she said, Jackson, Konitzer and Weizner all told her they didn't want her to go because "I had to do" a rebuttal to the Bashir program.

The mother and her family eventually made both an audiotape and a videotape in which they effusively praised Jackson and denied anything had happened between him and the boy. The mother explained to jurors that at the time the audiotape was made, she still had a favorable view of Jackson and thought he was protecting them.

"Everything I said, I said with my heart," she said. But she also said she had been told by a Jackson associate, Frank Tyson, that her estranged husband had made contact with "the killers" and that she needed to "say nice things about Michael so it will appease the killers."

Woman: Jackson aide wooed family back

The accuser's mother said Tyson, another unindicted co-conspirator, also told her that if she did a "good job" with the videotape, "I wouldn't have to leave the country." At the time, the Jackson camp was making preparations for a trip to Brazil, according to earlier testimony in the trial.

Uncomfortable about staying at Neverland, the mother said she eventually persuaded the ranch manager to take her and her children back to Los Angeles in the middle of the night. Once back home, she said, Tyson called her repeatedly, asking her to come back and telling her that Jackson had fired Konitzer and Weizner because of how they had treated her.

The prosecution played a compilation of those calls, in which Tyson told the mother how much Jackson loved her and her family and wanted them to come back.

"Never turn your back on us," Tyson said at one point.

The mother, too, spoke in glowing terms about Jackson on the tape, telling Tyson, "He's family to us, and we're family to him."

Persuaded to return to Neverland, she said, she arrived to find that Konitzer and Weizner were still there, at which point she realized "Frank had been lying to me the whole entire time."

Pleading a family emergency, she said she needed to leave the ranch, but she was told that while she could leave, her children could not.

She said Konitzer and Weizner told her that her movements were being watched, her calls monitored and that they could "make my kids disappear." She said she was also told if she told anybody what was happening, their "lives could be in danger."

Eventually, she asked another security guard, Chris Carter, to drive her back to Los Angeles, without her children.

Asked why she decided to leave without her children, the mother said only, "Because I did."

CNN's Ted Rowlands and Dree De Clamecy contributed to this report.


Story Tools
Click Here to try 4 Free Trial Issues of Time! cover
Top Stories
CNN/Money: Ex-Tyco CEO found guilty
Top Stories
EU 'crisis' after summit failure

City:

CNN US
On CNN TV E-mail Services CNN Mobile CNN AvantGo CNNtext Ad info Preferences
SEARCH
   The Web    CNN.com     
Powered by
© 2005 Cable News Network LP, LLLP.
A Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved.
Terms under which this service is provided to you.
Read our privacy guidelines. Contact us.
external link
All external sites will open in a new browser.
CNN.com does not endorse external sites.
 Premium content icon Denotes premium content.