Jackson Accuser’s Father Seeks to Visit

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge will decide next month if the father of singer Michael Jackson’s accuser will get to see the cancer-stricken boy for the first time in two years.

The father, a locked-out grocery warehouseman, was ordered by the court in November 2001 to stay away from his three children. The order was part of the father’s divorce from their mother.

The man, whose name was being withheld to protect the identity of his son, an alleged victim of child molestation, pleaded no contest to child cruelty in 2002 and spousal abuse in 2001.

On Wednesday, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Richard E. Denner denied the man’s emergency request for immediate visitation with his three children. Denner set a Feb. 24 hearing to consider the matter.

The man said in court papers that he was concerned about reports that his 14-year-old son is seriously ill, as well as about the criminal charges accusing Jackson of molesting the boy.

The pop star has pleaded not guilty to seven criminal counts of performing lewd and lascivious acts on a child under 14 and two counts of administering an intoxicating agent.

Outside the courtroom, attorney H. Russell Halpern said his client was disturbed that his ex-wife had allowed their son to spend the night at Jackson’s home unsupervised.

The man said in court papers that he believed his wife knew that Jackson had been accused of molesting another boy.

Halpern said the mother’s lawyer, Michael Manning, had given him an unsigned doctor’s letter saying that the boy’s cancer was in remission and that the child was not in “present danger,” despite having lost a kidney to the disease.

He also said he had been given letters from the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department, saying “they felt that the boy was OK,” and from a prosecutor in the case opposed to the father’s being reunited with the boy.

Prosecutors told Halpern that the father could be called as a witness in the upcoming child molestation trial.

“He wants to reestablish himself with his children ... not just for his sake but for the sake of his children,” Halpern said.