The Michael Jackson defense is relying heavily on discrediting his accuser with his previous foray into civil litigation, a lawsuit against J.C. Penney that we covered in 2003. According to The Smoking Gun:
In a broadside on the accuser’s mother, Mesereau described the woman as a shakedown artist who used her sick son as bait, a woman who coached her kids to lie in connection with an assault lawsuit the family once brought against J.C. Penney. Mesereau referred to a newly surfaced witness–who worked as a paralegal for the lawyer representing the family in the Penney case–who claims that the mother fabricated her allegations in that civil case. The paralegal contends that she hesitated to come forward because the mother once told her she had relatives in the Mexican Mafia.
The unnamed paralegal was deposed over the weekend; ABC News is reporting that the mother will deny the allegations. (Damien McElroy, “Mystery Jackson witness emerges”, Telegraph, Feb. 27; Tim Molloy, AP, Feb. 25). Meanwhile, Jesse Jackson is protesting the absence of black jurors on the panel.
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