SANTA MARIA, California - A comedian said Tuesday she received a frightened called from the mother of Michael Jackson's child sex accuser who said "evil" people were holding the family against their will.
The testimony came after Jackson, battling what his publicist called "excruciating" back pain, shuffled into court one day after showing up weeping, disheveled and late for his trial.
Comedian Louise Palanker, a friend of the family of the teenage cancer patient who accused Jackson of abuse, told the court she received a tearful call from the boy's mother in early February 2003, when prosecutors say the family was being held prisoner by Jackson and his aides.
"It's not a safe line, they're listening to every word I say. These people are evil, they are keeping us," Palanker quoted the mother of the now 15-year-old accuser as telling her.
"It was an extremely disturbing phone call," Palanker testified under questioning from prosecutors. "I felt they were held against their will."
The boy's mother, who Jackson's lawyers claim is a grifter who coached her three children to lie in fraudulent lawsuits and bilked money from celebrities, was in a state of "fear based agitation," Palanker said.
Palanker, who met the family in mid 2000, said she was so concerned by the phone called that she contacted her lawyer.
The call came shortly after the February 6, 2003 broadcast of a television documentary in which Jackson was seen holding the hand of his future accuser, she said.
Prosecutors maintain that the broadcast of the film, which led to the child molestation investigation against Jackson, so panicked the faded "King of Pop" and his aides that they plotted to kidnap the family and keep them prisoner until they agreed to make a video exonerating him of wrongdoing.
But Jackson, who faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted on 10 charges -- including molestation, plying the boy with alcohol and conspiracy to kidnap -- maintains that the family were never held against their will and lived high on the hog on the star's money.
Palanker also told the court that the mother of Jackson's alleged victim had never asked her for money, saying it was the woman's ex-husband who had "continuously" pursued her for cash.
Jackson's lawyers have painted the boy's mother as a grifter who frequently sought cash from celebrities and from fund-raisers for her ailing son, but prosecutors say it was his father who was a money-grubber.
Palanker confirmed that she gave the family two cheques for 10,000 dollar each in mid 2000.
"I was in a position to help this family, I didn't want (the accuser) to be alone in the hospital," she said explaining she offered the money to allow the boy's dad to take time off work to look after his son.
But within two weeks of the first cheque, the boy's now estranged father began asking for more money, Palanker said. He would say "(The mother) was going crazy, spending money on votive candles."
The comedian said she found it "very difficult" to say no, but insisted the mother had never tapped her for cash and that Jackson's accuser was honest but may have been manipulated by his father.
She referred to an incident when the boy left his wallet at the home of US comedian George Lopez and then allegedly accused Lopez of taking 300 dollars from it.
Lopez had said there was only three dollars in the wallet and fell out with the accuser's family.
But Palanker said the boy was not a con artist. "He's been honest in the face of others wishing him not to be," she said in an apparent reference to his father.
Jackson hobbled slowly into court Tuesday after a dramatic and tearful appearance Monday that delayed his trial by 45 minutes.
He showed up late, was helped into court by one of his brothers and an aide before being escorted out to the lavatory, apparently ill and sobbing.
His publicist said he was suffering from a back injury he sustained earlier this month.

03/22/2005 20:08 GMT