Jackson’s lawyers take aim at accuser’s mother

SANTA MARIA, Calif. - Michael Jackson's lawyers can present evidence at his child molestation trial that his young accuser's mother has in the past made abuse charges against her ex-husband and store security guards, a judge ruled on Friday.

Defence attorneys want to use that evidence in claiming that the woman, who is called Jane Doe in court, pressured her son into lying in order to get money from the 46-year-old pop singer.

Opening statements are scheduled to begin on Monday in the sensational case. Jackson is accused of molesting a then 13-year-old boy at his Neverland Valley ranch and conspiring to hold the child and his family prisoner there.

Jackson's lawyers say they will show that "Jane Doe" accused J.C. Penney security guards of groping her after the family was detained at the department store on suspicion of shoplifting. She later sued over the incident and ultimately won US$150,000 in a legal settlement.

Lead Jackson attorney Tom Mesereau said that during divorce proceedings the woman accused her ex-husband of inappropriately touching their daughter. Superior Court Judge Rodney Melville said the evidence could be presented to the jury, under limited circumstances, despite objections from prosecutors.

"This case is about whether a man who acknowledges sleeping with children slept with this child and what he did while he was sleeping with this child," Deputy District Attorney Ron Zonen said.

Also on Friday, Jackson's camp blasted ABC News for reporting that a dying woman was moved out of her Santa Maria hospital room last week to accommodate Jackson after he arrived there on Feb. 15 suffering flu-like symptoms. His illness forced a one-week delay in the trial.

Family members of 74-year-old Manuela Gomez Ruiz told ABC that she died later that day after she was taken off a ventilator and moved to another room despite having suffered a massive heart attack. They have threatened to sue Jackson and the hospital.

"Michael Jackson sends his condolences to the family of the deceased," his spokeswoman, Raymone Bain, said in a statement. "However, it is outrageous that Michael Jackson's name would be invoked into a situation of which he had no authority or control. He was a patient himself. It appears that ABC is deliberate in its attempt to circumvent Michael Jackson from receiving a fair trial."

Meanwhile, Jackson's father told the celebrity TV program "Access Hollywood" in an interview that it was unfair of prosecutors to dismiss a black woman from the jury pool.

"I'm just sorry that they got rid of the black juror," Joe Jackson said in an interview broadcast on Friday. "We needed that juror and it's not fair, I'll tell you that."

The Jackson family patriarch was apparently referring to a woman who was dismissed by prosecutors from the jury pool earlier in the week, over the objections of defence lawyers.

The woman told the attorneys that her husband, a former Santa Barbara County Sheriff's deputy, had been treated unfairly by the department. She also said that the jury pool was not racially diverse enough to give Jackson a fair trial.

- REUTERS