Witness Tells of Teary Call From Jackson Accuser's Mom

An apparently hobbled Michael Jackson gets a hand as he leaves the courtroom. (Pool Photo Carlo Allegri)

SANTA MARIA, Calif., March 22 -- In the late winter of 2003, Louise Palanker, a successful Los Angeles-based comedy writer and producer, received a disturbing phone call. It was the mother of three students she had taught years earlier at a stand-up comedy class for underprivileged children.

Palanker had fallen out of touch with the family more than a year earlier. But that month she had watched a controversial television documentary, "Living With Michael Jackson," in which one of the boys was shown holding hands with the pop star, who acknowledged sharing his bed with youngsters. It prompted Palanker to contact the family, sending them a letter when she found that their phone numbers no longer worked. Days later, the mother called. As Palanker testified in Santa Barbara County Superior Court on Tuesday, the woman was weeping and clearly afraid.

"Weezy, if you have caller ID, don't call me back at this number. This is not a safe line. They're listening to everything I say," Palanker recalled the woman saying. "These people are evil."

It was the most jarring and hotly contested moment of testimony Tuesday in Jackson's child-molestation trial, a day that otherwise chronicled how Jackson's young accuser and his working-class family from East Los Angeles forged their unlikely connections with a variety of show business luminaries, including comedians George Lopez and Chris Tucker.

Palanker's testimony was part of the prosecution's attempt to show that Jackson and his entourage held the family against their will to coerce them to appear in a video rebutting the images presented in journalist Martin Bashir's documentary. Yet her account also provided ample opportunities for Jackson's attorneys, who argue that the molestation claims were simply an attempt by the family to extract money from the entertainer.

Jackson, who arrived late for court Monday, disheveled and complaining of pain, appeared healthy Tuesday, walking to his seat without assistance. The main drama of the day occurred during a midmorning break, when a female fan fainted outside the courtroom, hitting the tile floor hard. When deputies rushed to help her, she screamed, "Don't touch me!" and later, "Michael, help me!" for several minutes.

Palanker, in her mid-forties and with a blond shag haircut and rimless glasses, spent three hours on the stand. In a husky, matter-of-fact voice, she described meeting the three children when they enrolled in a camp she ran at the Laugh Factory, a Hollywood comedy club, in summer 1999. They were coached by comedians, including stand-up veteran and sitcom star Lopez, to find humor in stories from their own lives.

"Some of the children don't have a voice, there's no one listening to them," Palanker said, describing the esteem-building goals of the camp. "Put them on a stage with a microphone" and they blossom, she said.

Months later, when a friend wanted to take Christmas presents to needy children, she recommended the three siblings. When they arrived at the family's tiny studio apartment, bearing gifts of a microwave and a PlayStation, the kids were so excited that they jumped up and down on the two mattresses on the floor that served as their beds, Palanker said.

Six months later, in June 2000, Palanker heard from the mother that the middle child -- the boy who would later accuse Jackson -- was very ill. She took to visiting him two or three times a week while he was in the hospital and gave the parents $10,000 so they could take time off from work and construct a germ-free room for the boy at his grandparents' home.

"It was fairly spontaneous. It was just a decision I made," Palanker said of the gift, noting that neither the mother nor the children ever asked her for money. The father, however, began hanging around the comedy club and "continuously" asking for more money. She gave him another $10,000 that summer but said the demands kept coming. In October 2000, the Laugh Factory hosted a benefit for the boy that raised $800 to $1,000.

By the time the club did a second benefit, in 2001, relations between the family and the comedy world were souring. After a visit to Lopez's home, Palanker said, the father claimed the boy had left a wallet containing $300 behind; the Lopezes, she said, felt they were being hustled when they found the wallet with only a few dollars in it.

Under cross-examination by Jackson attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr., Palanker also acknowledged that she had warned the father to stop having the children call other celebrities, including Jay Leno, for whom they had left several voice messages.

Palanker said she fell out of touch with the family, partly because the boy's condition had improved but also because he was spending so much of his time with Jackson.

Palanker's account of the 2003 phone call from the mother was interrupted by defense attorneys and the judge, who warned jurors to consider the "hearsay" tale only to the extent that it informs them of the mother's state of mind -- and not to determine whether she and her children were actually held captive.

Mesereau pressed Palanker to acknowledge that the children seemed "coached" on occasion, as when one nagged her to buy him a laptop computer. She said she had never known the children to lie.

Mesereau also quizzed the comedy writer on statements she had given to police investigators suggesting she thought the mother looked to celebrities to help her. Did Palanker believe the mother wanted to "latch onto a celebrity who could help them get out of their situation?" he asked.

"She would latch onto anyone who could help them," Palanker responded.