Mom: Jackson pleaded to sleep with son
Monday, April 11, 2005 Posted: 6:06 PM EDT (2206 GMT)

Michael Jackson arrives at court Monday.


SANTA MARIA, California (CNN) -- The mother of a boy who alleged Michael Jackson molested him in 1993 testified Monday that she allowed her son to start spending nights alone with the pop star after a sobbing Jackson pleaded with her to let them sleep together.

Taking the stand in Jackson's child molestation trial, the mother said she initially refused Jackson's requests for them to spend nights together. But she said she relented during a trip to Las Vegas in March 1993, after Jackson -- whom she described as "sobbing, crying, shaking and trembling" -- confronted her.

"You don't trust me. We're a family," she quoted the entertainer as saying. "There's nothing wrong. There's nothing going on. Why don't you trust me?"

After 30 to 40 minutes of pleading, the mother said she relented, and the singer and child then began sleeping in the same bed on nights when they were together. The boy was 13 at the time.

She said Jackson would visit the family's home in Santa Monica to spend the night with her son, leave in the morning after he went to school and then return in the afternoon when the boy came home. There was only one bed in the boy's room, she said.

By the fall of 1993, the mother said she became concerned about what was going on because her son had become withdrawn, sullen and "was not wanting to be with us anymore." She said he began dressing like Jackson and was "not as sweet as he normally was."

"[He] was spending too much time with Michael Jackson, and I was upset," she said. "I wanted my son back. ... It was getting out of hand."

In 1994, the boy's family reached a confidential multimillion-dollar settlement with Jackson over molestation allegations, in which Jackson did not admit guilt. Now 25, the alleged victim has decided not to testify in Jackson's trial because he does not want to get involved in the media spectacle surrounding it, his uncle has told CNN.

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

Jackson has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Monday's testimony was part of an effort by the prosecution to use past allegations against Jackson to try to prove the singer had a pattern of grooming boys for sexual abuse.

Ex-publicist: Jackson licked boy's head
On the stand Monday, the mother said she had not spoken to her son in 11 years.

She said the family first met Jackson in August of 1992 at a Los Angeles car rental agency where her then-husband, the boy's stepfather, worked. She said she gave Jackson their phone number and told the entertainer to call "if you'd like to see [him] ... or speak to him."

A month or two later, Jackson began calling the boy, in conversations that "got longer and longer," she said. She and her son and daughter were then invited to visit Jackson's Neverland Ranch, where they spent the weekend.

Jackson began treating the family to trips to Las Vegas, Disneyland and Florida, and they accompanied him to the 1993 World Music Awards in Monaco, she said. He also gave her gifts that included a gold Cartier bracelet, earrings, a necklace and a ring, as well as a $7,000 gift certificate to a Beverly Hills jeweler.

In other testimony Monday, Jackson's former publicist reluctantly admitted that he saw Jackson lick the boy's head when he and his family were on the plane returning from Monaco.

Bob Jones, who handled media relations for Jackson from 1987 until he was fired late last year, is writing a book about his time with Jackson with co-author Stacy Brown. A draft of the book obtained by prosecutors contained the licking allegation, but under questioning Monday, Jones initially said he could not recall the episode.

After he was confronted with e-mails he sent to Brown that "the licking is going to be important," he conceded that it must have taken place.

"I would not have made it up," he testified Monday.

Prosecutors also called Brown to the stand. He said he had several conversations with Jones in which he talked about seeing Jackson lick the boy's head on during the Monaco trip, but he said Jones' recollections later became "fuzzy."

And under cross-examination by defense attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr., Brown said Jones' recollections about the incident seemed to change with his finances -- that he had a better memory of seeing the licking when he needed money and a fuzzier memory when he didn't.

Jones and Brown have written a book titled "The Man Behind The Mask" that is currently being edited by their publisher, with a final draft expected in six to eight weeks, Jones said.

Asked if the book was an accurate depiction of his experiences working for Jackson, Jones said, "It's factual to a degree," going on to explain that Brown had included things of which he did not approve.

Prosecutor Gordon Auchincloss introduced excerpts from a manuscript of the book, in which Jones described Jackson and the boy "holding each other tightly" while sleeping on the return trip from Monaco in an "almost romantic embrace," with "cooing" and licks on the head.

The licking episode is important to the prosecution's case because it supports testimony by Jackson's current accuser and his family that the pop star also licked that boy on the head.

In Jones' e-mail to Brown, he makes that same point, writing that "the licking is going to be important because he did it in this case" and that it would "bite him big," referring to Jackson.

While Jones hedged about the licking on the stand Monday, he told jurors that he did see Jackson and boy "embraced into one another" while coming back from Monaco.

He also said that during the awards show, at Jackson's insistence, the boy and his sister sat on Jackson's lap. At the time, Jackson was seated in the front row between Prince Albert of Monaco and actress Linda Evans, and the girl eventually shifted to sit on Evans' lap, while the boy remained on Jackson's lap, Jones said.

Jones said he had arranged for the boy, his sister and his mother to sit in the row behind Jackson because he believed "the royalty would be bothered with those guests."

"Because perception is 90 percent of what the public thinks, I had attempted to get those people off his lap," he said.

What do you all think about Michael Jackson and all this sex stuff acused of him? I don't like the guy or anything but I don't think he did.

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i'll keep it in here for now but if it gets out of hand i'll erase it....hey it is news and i think it will be talked about....majestic i'd like it if you posted a question on the subject also thanks

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Â-balam balam i treat yall like cans of spam

Free Time...

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i dunno about y'all, but when i was 13, if someone the size of michael jackson even hinted at tryin shit with me i woulda been able to keep him from doin it...seriously..an 8 year old could prolly beat the shit outta him

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I think Michael Jackson did it..............I personally think he should be locked up because child molestation is fucking disgusting!!!!

Melt His Plastic Ass!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Well on that E! channel, they did a documentary. They found handcuffs in his rooms. Now think...a man with handcuffs thats been acused of rape and moleustation..? But something in my gut is telling me he didn't do it.

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