Created: Saturday, 26 March 2005
Day 17, which Judge Melville announced would only be a half day, featured the testimony of a comedian who gave $20,000 to the family of the boy now accusing Michael Jackson of molestation. She testified Tuesday that she received a tearful phone call from the boy’s mother that led her to believe the family was being held against its will.
Comedian Louise Palanker said she tried to get in touch with the mother after seeing the TV documentary “Living With Michael Mr. Jackson” in which Mr. Jackson and his accuser held hands and Mr. Jackson acknowledged letting children sleep in his bed.
Palanker was called by the prosecution in an effort to support the charge that Mr. Jackson conspired to hold the family captive after the documentary aired on Feb. 6, 2003, in order to get them to make a rebuttal video praising Mr. Jackson.
On the witness stand, Palanker said soon after she left a message with the boy’s grandparents, the mother called her and sounded frightened.
“She was extremely agitated and she was almost whispering. … This was fear-based agitation,” Palanker said.
The mother told her not to call her back at the same number, the witness said. Palanker quoted the mother as saying: “Don’t call me back here. They’re listening to everything I say. These people are evil.”
Palanker said that she believed the boy’s mother suffered from a “hostage syndrome” that made her feel trapped. She did not say where the mother was at the time of the call. The comedian said she called her attorney after the call. She did not call the police.
The defense contends the boy’s mother exploited relationships with Palanker and other celebrities to get money. With Palanker’s testimony, the prosecution sought to show it was the now-estranged father who did that.
Louise Palanker said she believed the woman had felt like a hostage since she became married at age 16 to a man who allegedly abused her. The comedian told jurors how the accuser’s family, who claimed to be poverty-stricken, joined classes in 1999 at the Laugh Factory comedy club in Hollywood and received help from comics including George Lopez and Chris Tucker.
Palanker said she once gave the family $10,000 so they could take time off work and cover personal expenses while the boy was being treated for cancer in 2000.
“I was in a position where I could help this family and I didn’t want someone to ever be alone in a hospital,” she said.
But within two weeks of the first gift, she said, the father asked her for another $10,000 to fix up a germ-free room for the boy when he came home. She obliged and later visited the room, where she found the family had bought a large-screen TV and DVD for the boy, expenditures she considered to be poor money management.
She said the contractor sent to fix up the room was never paid, and eventually decided to consider his work a gift to the boy.
Palanker said she and Jamie Masada, owner of the Laugh Factory, organized two benefits for the family at the father’s urging but by the time of the second benefit Lopez refused to perform because the father and boy had accused Lopez and his wife of stealing $300 from the boy’s wallet.
“They were irate,” Palanker said of the Lopezes. “They thought (the father) was lying.”
When Lopez refused to perform at the final benefit, she said, the father picked up a pile of cash that had been raised. “He threw it at Jamie and said, ‘I don’t want your money,'” Palanker said, adding that the father eventually took it.
After that benefit, she said, her contact with the family “became less and less” until the call from the mother.
Mr. Jackson’s attorney questioned Palanker about the family’s interest in meeting celebrities.
“Did you say at any time that they were trying to latch on to celebrities to get out of their situation?” Mr. Mesereau asked.
“Latch on to anyone that could help them,” said Palanker.
Palanker acknowledged the family “liked to make phone calls” to celebrities - including Jay Leno, who contacted Palanker. “He told me they had left three messages on his voice mail,” she said, acknowledging that Jay Leno did ask her to tell the family to stop calling him.
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