Comedian tells of 'frightened' call from Jackson accuser's mother

A comedian who gave €16,000 to the family of the boy now accusing Michael Jackson of sexual abuse told a court she received a tearful phone call from the boy’s mother that led her to believe the family was being held against its will.

Louise Palanker told the Santa Maria, California, court that she tried to get in touch with the mother after seeing Martin Bashir’s TV documentary, Living With Michael Jackson, in which Jackson and his accuser held hands and Jackson acknowledged letting children sleep in his bed.

Palanker was called by the prosecution to support the charge that Jackson conspired to hold the family captive after the documentary was shown on February 6, 2003, in order to get them to make a rebuttal video praising Jackson.

On the witness stand, Palanker said soon after she left a message with the boy’s grandparents, his 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.”

“I said: ‘Are the children in school?’ She said: ‘No’. That’s when she started crying,” Palanker said.

Palanker did not say where the mother was at the time of the call. The comedian said she called her lawyer afterwards because “I felt that they were being held against their will”. She did not call police.

She also testified she once told investigators the woman had “hostage syndrome”, and that she believed the woman had felt like a hostage since her marriage at age 16 to an allegedly abusive man.

Jackson, who denies molesting the boy in February or March 2003, arrived on time yesterday, smiling but moving slowly as he did on Monday when he was late again after another visit to a hospital. The pop star has complained of back pain.

He had to sit through only a half-day of testimony yesterday because of an abbreviated schedule.

As he left court he told reporters: “I’m doing better.”

The defence says 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.

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 voicemail,” she said, acknowledging he asked her to tell the family to stop calling him.

Palanker said she met the family at a comedy camp for underprivileged youth run by the Laugh Factory club in Hollywood and began helping them financially after the boy was diagnosed with cancer. Palanker said she gave the family €7,900 to cover expenses.

“It was fairly spontaneous,” she said. “I just decided on my own to do it.”

But she said she gave a second gift of €7,900 when the father asked for more money. Palanker said the father told her the family could not afford rent because his wife had spent their money on such things as prayer and “a lot of statues and votive candles”.

The comedian said she later learned the family had fixed up a clean room for the boy so he could recover from chemotherapy at his grandparents’ house and also bought the boy a big screen TV and DVD player that they all used.

Palanker said she and the owner of the Laugh Factory organised two benefits for the family at the father’s urging. By the time of the second benefit, comedian George Lopez refused to perform because the father and boy had accused Lopez and his wife of stealing €240 from the boy’s wallet.

The Lopezes said they had been falsely accused and “were irate”, she said.