MICHAEL Jackson’s father has dismissed speculation that family members are distancing themselves from the superstar who is on trial for child abuse.
Joe Jackson today hit back at media reports that suggested the absence of the faded King of Pop’s musical siblings from the trial court’s public gallery and Joe Jackson’s recent low profile indicated a family rift.

“This information is both false and mean spirited,” Joe Jackson said, referring to news reports that said some members of the family were not supporting their relative’s court battle.

Family spokeswoman Angel Howansky said the family had decided early on that parents Katherine and Joe would represent the entire Jackson clan at the trial in the California town of Santa Maria.

But the family patriarch has not come to court recently only because he has been ill, Howansky said.

“Mr Jackson has been resting at home recovering from a recent bout of the flu, and is being very careful not to get his son Michael Jackson sick,” she said.

Source: Agence France-Presse

In a video segment on CNN’s Larry King Live, King replayed a previous interview with the former child star MacCauley Culkin.

This is what MacCauly had to say about Michael Jackson:

“Nothing happened, you know, I mean, nothing, really. We played video games. You know, we played in the amusement park. Well, the thing is — the thing is, with that whole thing, is that, you know, they’ve always — oh, you slept in the same bedroom with him. I don’t think you understand. Michael Jackson’s bedroom is two stories, and it had like three bathrooms and this and that. So, when I slept in his bedroom — yes, but you have to understand the whole scenario. And, the thing is, with Michael is that he is not very good at explaining himself, and he never really has been, because he’s not a very social person. I mean, you are talking about someone who’s been sheltered, and sheltering himself also, for the last, like, 30 years.”

Source: Larry King

Michael Jackson is now in big, big trouble with the Bank of America.

I can tell you this: According to sources, Jackson’s deal with B of A prohibits him from running up debt in the form of accounts payable beyond $3 million.

I am told that he has exceeded this amount to as much as $6 million. And the penalty for that is default. And the penalty for default is mind blowing. The bank could conceivably turn around and sell Jackson’s debt to the loan’s guarantor, Sony Music.

Jackson — as stated before — owes Bank of America roughly $270 million. His collateral is his 50 percent stake in Sony/ATV Music Publishing, the company that includes the Beatles catalog of 251 songs. The company is valued at $1 billion.

Jackson’s situation is precarious, but his response to the problem is what is all the more curious.

For years, Bank of America’s Jane Heller has kept his operation running with glue and rubber bands, doing her best to keep Jackson out of bankruptcy and default.

She said about Jackson’s situation in this column on April 19, 2002: “I’ve kept [Michael] alive for 20 years. And it’s not that the advice he gets is bad. It’s him. He’s his own worst enemy.”

All of this begs the question: why doesn’t Jackson simply accept the offer this column first reported exclusively to end this financial nightmare? He would only part with half of his Sony/ATV holdings, be free and clear of all debt at Neverland and with MiJac and wind up with $10 million in cash.

Source: Roger Friedman

SANTA MARIA, Calif. - The night Michael Jackson’s accuser and his family say they secretly “escaped” from Neverland, their departure was documented in ranch security logs, right down to the Rolls-Royce they left in.
Defense attorney Robert Sanger produced pages of gate logs, including one showing the family left on Feb. 12, 2003, at 1:38 a.m. It listed everyone in the car - in bold block lettering.

Former Neverland guard Brian Barron verified the family’s departure was recorded, following standard procedure.

“So there was no secret spiriting people away?” Sanger asked.

Jackson’s team says charges the family was held against its will are false. They also note the family voluntarily returned a few days later.

Barron, a Guadalupe, Calif., cop who moonlighted at Neverland for more than five years, also testified he never saw a crime committed at the ranch.

“If you had ever seen anything unlawful, you would have been dutybound to report it?” Sanger asked the tall, red-haired cop.

“Correct.”

“And you found no need to do that?”

“Correct.”

Barron did say he once saw a “directive” written on an erasable whiteboard ordering that Jackson’s accuser not be allowed to leave for a full week in February 2002.

Sanger told jurors no other guards saw that whiteboard directive, but he did acknowledge that on Feb. 19, 2003, the guards were told not to let the accuser and his siblings leave because that was the day a pro-Jackson video was being taped.

The Neverland logs also revealed several celebrity comings and goings.

The Rev. Al Sharpton visited on June 23, 2002, to meet with Jackson about their campaign to combat racism in the music industry.

He told the Daily News he never saw the accuser.

The logs also noted “60 Minutes” correspondent Ed Bradley visited on Feb. 8, 2003, while the boy and his family allegedly were being held against their will.

Bradley is on the defense witness list.

Elizabeth Taylor was scheduled to arrive at Neverland “by chopper” on Feb. 17, 2003 - but the visit was canceled, the logs revealed.

Source: NY Times

Prosecutors on Tuesday began wrapping up their case against Michael Jackson, opening the way for what promises to be a celebrity roll-call of witnesses in the singer’s defense.

Santa Barbara County District Attorney Tom Sneddon said he intended to rest his case next week after more than two months of testimony into accusations that Jackson, 46, molested a teenage boy and conspired to imprison his family at Neverland Valley Ranch.

Jackson’s lead attorney, Tom Mesereau, told Santa Barbara Superior Court Judge Rodney Melville that he planned to call “lots of witnesses” in Jackson’s defense.

Mesereau has said these may include some of the most famous people in America, including actress Elizabeth Taylor, singers Stevie Wonder and Diana Ross, basketball star Kobe Bryant, and talk-show host Jay Leno.

Defense lawyers say Leno will testify that the boy at the center of the case sought financial help from him, bolstering their claims that the molestation accusations were invented by the family to extort money from Jackson.

Source: Reuters

The grandmother of Gavin Arvizo testified about an avalanche of media attention that followed the debut of “Living With Michael Jackson” in February 2003. The documentary depicted the singer holding hands with his accuser - then 13 - and admitting sharing his bed with children, a practice her described as innocent and non-sexual.

In addition to the media attention, the woman testified that she received numerous messages from Neverland on her answering machine. Though she does not speak English, she said she noticed on the caller ID that the calls were from either Neverland or Jackson associate Frank Tyson.

Prosecutors allege that Jackson conspired with Tyson and four others to falsely imprison, extort and abduct the entertainer’s accuser and his family.

Jackson defense attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr. chose not to cross-examine the grandmother, whose animated behavior elicited chuckles from jurors and the audience.

Source: Santa Maria Times

The grandmother of Michael Jackson’s boy accuser testified that her grandchildren’s behavior changed after they appeared in a controversial TV program with the man she called “Miguel.”

Speaking through a translator, the woman testified she had to feign illness in order to have her grandchildren taken from Jackson’s Neverland Valley Ranch near Los Olivos to her home in El Monte.

Once they arrived, she said, their behavior had changed and they acted strangely.

“Their entire life, my grand kids and myself were very close,” she said. “When they came back (from Neverland), they didn’t talk to me in the same way. They were different kids.”

“And even now (Jackson’s accuser) is not the same child.”

Source: Santa Maria Times

An environmentally-sensitive 30-bungalow resort, to be called, “The Brando,” is scheduled to open in 2008 on Tetiaroa, the island the actor bought in 1965. The only current inhabitant is Brando’s son, Teihotu, one of his children with ex-wife Tarita Teriipia.

Major obstacles to the project have been cleared, but there is much work to be done to create the $40-million project on a 150-acre (60 hectare) island with no electricity or running water.

Legal challenges remain, among them a lawsuit by Jo Ann Corrales, who says she was Brando’s business manager but was removed as an executor of his will days before his July, 2004, death.

Corrales says the project overlaps a half-acre chunk of Tetiaroa that Brando deeded to Michael Jackson in 2003 after visiting Jackson’s Neverland Valley Ranch.

Estate attorneys say the offer to Jackson was merely a token gesture and Bailey said Brando never mentioned the deed even though they spoke until just before he died.

Source: CNN

Michael Jackson’s attorney on Tuesday challenged the authenticity of photographs that appeared to show the mother of the pop star’s accuser with severe bruises from an alleged beating by store security guards.

The woman’s family received a settlement of more than $150,000 over the 1998 store incident. The episode is unrelated to the child-molestation case against Jackson, but the singer’s lawyers have seized on it to argue that the family has a history of making false claims for money.

Defense attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr. attacked the photos, introduced by the prosecution late Monday, by asking the woman when the pictures were taken. She said immediately her then-husband wanted to document her injuries.

“But didn’t you testify that you didn’t have these bruises immediately?” asked Mesereau.

She fumbled for words and said she had been doing everything at the instruction of a defense attorney after she was arrested on suspicion of assault and battery, burglary and petty theft charges that were eventually dropped.

Mesereau asked whether she told a woman at a law office that the bruises that were photographed were actually from a beating by her former husband.

“That’s incorrect,” she said during her fifth and final day on the stand.

The woman said that although she claimed to have been beaten and sexually touched during the altercation with the store guards, she did not decide to sue until a year later. Mesereau then suggested that was the pattern she was following in the Jackson case.

Source: Associated Press

Michael Jackson’s attorney on Tuesday challenged the authenticity of photographs that appeared to show the mother of the pop star’s accuser with severe bruises from an alleged beating by store security guards.

The woman’s family received a settlement of more than $150,000 over the 1998 store incident. The episode is unrelated to the child-molestation case against Jackson, but the singer’s lawyers have seized on it to argue that the family has a history of making false claims for money.

Defense attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr. attacked the photos, introduced by the prosecution late Monday, by asking the woman when the pictures were taken. She said immediately her then-husband wanted to document her injuries.

“But didn’t you testify that you didn’t have these bruises immediately?” asked Mesereau.

She fumbled for words and said she had been doing everything at the instruction of a defense attorney after she was arrested on suspicion of assault and battery, burglary and petty theft charges that were eventually dropped.

Mesereau asked whether she told a woman at a law office that the bruises that were photographed were actually from a beating by her former husband.

“That’s incorrect,” she said during her fifth and final day on the stand.

The woman said that although she claimed to have been beaten and sexually touched during the altercation with the store guards, she did not decide to sue until a year later. Mesereau then suggested that was the pattern she was following in the Jackson case.

Source: Associated Press