Jackson lawyer 'ordered watch on accuser's family'
Michael Jackson’s former lawyer ordered a private investigator to keep tabs on the family of his young accuser as he feared they might sell their story to a tabloid, it emerged today.
Mark Geragos told the singer’s child sex abuse trial he was also concerned the family may have gone to a lawyer to try and sue the singer.
“I told (investigator Bradley Miller) to find who they’re meeting with and what they’re doing,” he said.
“My concern was that there was going to be some kind of accusation made, there was going to be some false story concocted.”
Mr Geragos, who was employed by the pop star in February 2003, returned to Santa Maria court, California, amid tensions over the terms under which he could testify.
Jackson had waived his attorney-client privilege for the period up until his arrest in November 2003 but that limit was not disclosed in court until Mr Geragos mentioned it while testifying last week.
Judge Rodney Melville, clearly frustrated, allowed the lawyer to continue his evidence today but warned that he may impose sanctions on Jackson’s current lawyer, Tom Mesereau, for not revealing the terms of the waiver sooner.
“I feel deceived by Mr Mesereau and I am considering sanctions of some sort against Mr Mesereau,” he said.
The judge said he could have stricken Mr Geragos’ testimony from the record but did not think that was viable as jurors had already heard it and were likely to remember it during deliberations.
Under cross-examination, the prosecution tried to link Mr Geragos to the alleged conspiracy to hold the boy and his family captive.
But the lawyer denied all knowledge of the evidence put to him, including the suggestion that he had ordered staff to stand guard outside the family’s room at a hotel resort in Calabasas.
“I don’t believe that any employees of mine were standing guard outside the Country Suites,” he said. “I don’t buy that for a second.”
Mr Geragos began testifying last Friday but was granted a one-week delay because of his obligations to other cases.
Jackson, 46, denies molesting the 13-year-old boy, plying him with alcohol and conspiring to hold him and his family captive. The trial continues.
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