Jackson Witnesses Say Boy’s Mother Was Deceptive

Witnesses in Michael Jackson’s child-molestation trial on Monday described his young accuser’s mother as a welfare cheat and a conniver who tried to profit from her son’s bout with near-terminal cancer.

The woman’s credibility is a central issue in the trial in Santa Barbara County Superior Court, with the defense arguing that she made up a story about being held captive at Jackson’s Santa Ynez Valley ranch and got her 13-year-old son to concoct incidents of sexual abuse so she could later sue the entertainer. If convicted of all charges in the criminal case, Jackson, 46, could face more than 20 years in prison.

On the witness stand, a Los Angeles County Department of Social Services employee said the woman lied on her application for welfare benefits in 2001.

Mercy Manrriquez testified that the accuser’s mother, whose name The Times is withholding to protect her now-15-year-old son’s identity, failed to disclose a $152,000 settlement her family had received -- just 10 days before the welfare application -- from a lawsuit against J.C. Penney Co.

Under questioning by defense attorney Robert M. Sanger, Manrriquez said the omission constituted welfare fraud.

The allegation, which Los Angeles prosecutors have said they are investigating, is a familiar one to jurors in the Jackson case. In his opening statement, Dist. Atty. Tom Sneddon acknowledged the deception. Later, the jury was told the woman would answer no questions about her welfare benefits because she had decided to invoke her 5th Amendment protection against incriminating herself.

She received a $769 monthly welfare check until March 2003, when she voluntarily left the program. Her handwritten note to officials at the time was decorated with a heart and said, “Thank you so much.”

Manrriquez also testified that the woman lied on her welfare application by claiming that she had no health insurance. At the time, her family was covered through her husband’s health maintenance organization, although the couple was in the middle of a divorce.

That insurance -- and the woman’s alleged failure to disclose it -- was at the heart of Monday’s testimony by an El Monte newspaper editor, who said she was “duped” by the woman into running a feature story about her ailing son.

Connie Keenan said the woman mounted an aggressive campaign for publicity in the Mid-Valley News, a weekly paper with a staff of three. Keenan said she had misgivings about the story, which intensified when the mother asked for a follow-up, saying the original article had not raised enough money.

Having learned of the family’s medical coverage, Keenan sharply turned the mother down: “I didn’t want to talk to her. I’d already established the fact that I’d been duped.”

On cross-examination, Sneddon suggested the family’s health insurance may have been jeopardized by the fact that the father was on disability at the time. He also got Keenan to agree that families in prolonged medical crises have many healthcare expenses that are not covered by insurance.

The mother also was criticized Monday by her former sister-in-law, who sobbed as she related the response she got for organizing two blood drives for her nephew. The woman said the boy’s mother denounced the efforts with obscenities, saying she needed money, not blood.