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Jackson begged to sleep with boy-child's mother
A sobbing Michael Jackson in 1993 begged a mother for permission to sleep with her 13-year-old boy, the beginning of a relationship that ended in a $23 million settlement and left her estranged from her son ever since, the woman testified on Monday. In sometimes emotional testimony, the mother said she deeply regretted trusting the pop icon and hadn't spoken to her now-25-year-old son since shortly after the family reached the out-of-court settlement with Jackson over child molestation accusations in the mid-1990s.
The woman recounted how Jackson, who met the family at her ex-husband's Rent-a-Wreck car rental agency in Los Angeles, took an immediate shine to her son, engaging him in long telephone conversations and inviting them to his Neverland Valley Ranch.
She said her son asked several times to spend the night with Jackson and she refused until the singer came to her during a trip to Las Vegas -- sobbing, shaking and begging her for a sleepover with the boy.
"Michael was trembling, saying 'We're a family. (He) is having fun. Why can't he sleep in my bed? There's nothing wrong. There's nothing going on. Don't you trust me?" she testified.
The mother said she relented and the next day, the singer presented her with a Cartier gold bracelet. That began a pattern in which Jackson spent many nights with her son, including about 30 in the boy's bedroom at the family's home in the Los Angeles area.
DRESSING LIKE THE KING OF POP
The woman said she gradually lost control of her son as he began dressing like the self-styled King of Pop, becoming sullen and ignoring other family members. During a trip to New York City in the summer of 1993, she tried to intervene and Jackson again became distraught.
"Why can't we be a family? Why are you objecting to (the boy) staying with me? Why don't you trust me?" the woman recalled Jackson saying. "He was upset that I wanted my son back. I didn't like the situation. It was getting out of hand."
Though the mother never saw Jackson molest her son, she was called by prosecutors as they try to prove that the entertainer has a predilection for sexually abusing young boys. The son, one of five boys who prosecutors say were molested or targeted for abuse by Jackson, stopped cooperating with authorities after settling his case and is not expected to testify.
Jackson, 46, was never charged in the 1993 case, but the judge in the current trial ruled last month that evidence about that case could be presented. The ruling was a major setback to the pop singer's defense.
Jackson is charged with molesting a different 13-year-old boy at his Neverland Valley Ranch in February or March of 2003, plying the youth with alcohol in order to abuse him and conspiring to commit false imprisonment, child abduction and extortion. The performer, who has pleaded innocent, faces more than two decades in prison if convicted.
The woman said Jackson used his lawyer and private investigator to pressure her into relinquishing custody of her son to her ex-husband, whom she had divorced years earlier.
Prosecutors suggested the singer was trying to avoid child custody proceedings that could shed light on his relationship with the boy.
"He was frantic. He was begging me to 'Come over here and sign so there wouldn't be any lawsuits. Just sign it, sign it,"' the woman remembered Jackson saying.
On cross-examination, Jackson's lawyer accused the woman of going to lawyers with the sexual abuse allegations before contacting police, a claim she repeatedly denied. |
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