Court Session 13: Testimony from Michael’s former maid

Michael Jackson arrived at court today with his father, wearing a maroon suit and a yellow and white vest. In today’s court session, Kiki Fournier, Michael Jackson’s former maid—who had worked for him from 1991 until September 2003—took the witness stand and testified that she had never seen Michael Jackson give alcoholic drinks to children. She also said she believed that the current complainant, Jackson, and his brother slept in the guest room. She went on to say that Michael paid special attention to boys aged 10 to 15. Regarding the presence of children at Neverland, Fournier said: " Without their parents being present at Neverland, the children would get out of control. " " The children who were guests of Michael were allowed to watch movies as much as they wanted, eat sweets and chocolates, and stay up late at night. " She added that sometimes, when the children got too rowdy, Michael would make them follow the rules. She also claims that three or four times, she saw the children not behaving normally. In describing one of these cases, Fournier said that shortly before he left Neverland in September 2003, she saw Michael at the dinner table with several children. She claims that three of those children were not sober. Although she never saw Jackson giving alcoholic drinks to children, she also had never observed the current complainant and his brother behaving unnaturally during her time working at Neverland. She continued by saying that every child who spent the night at Neverland was given the guest room. But many of them refused to sleep in those rooms and stayed beside Mr. Jackson instead. Fournier’s statements contradict the complainant’s claims that during Michael Jackson’s time at Neverland in the months of February and March 2003 (the same period when the complainant says the allegations took place), he slept with her every night in his room. In court, she said that the guest room where the complainant and his brother were present during their stay at Neverland was " completely wrecked. " Food and trash were scattered around, drinks were spilled everywhere, and the glasses were broken. Fournier said that during the complainant’s brother’s time at Neverland, he had become bad-tempered and kept making excuses. She added that while they were in the kitchen and the complainant’s brother tried to cook, he pulled a knife on her. At the end, Thomas Mesereau asked, " Since Neverland is designed to be a dream place for children, was it surprising that they couldn’t be controlled in such a setting? " Fournier answered, " No, it wasn’t unnatural. " Fournier described Michael Jackson as someone " very meticulous about details. " " Mr. Jackson pays a lot of attention to details and usually talked with me about matters related to Neverland. " Regarding Michael’s relationship with Tyson—one of his employees who is also accused of being involved in a plot against the complainant’s family—she said they were very close friends. She stated that sometimes Tyson would stay at Neverland for a month, although there was also a six-month absence between his stays. During Mesereau’s repeated questions, Fournier admitted that her information about Tyson’s relationship with Michael Jackson came from Tyson himself. When Mesereau said that perhaps Tyson exaggerated these relationships for his own advancement, Fournier said that Tyson was self-serving. The complainant and his brother have accused Tyson of showing them sexual images. On the same day, Konn Able—another investigator from the Santa Barbara County Police Department who had searched Michael Jackson’s home in 2003—was called to the witness stand. He testified that he found sexual books in the bathroom of Michael’s office. He also said that a device for recording telephone calls was found in Michael’s office. During repeated questioning by the defense attorney, Able said he could not say whether this device could be obtained legally, nor whether it had ever been used. He also acknowledged that this device might have been used as part of a security system at Neverland. The prosecution claimed that Jackson used this device to eavesdrop on the complainant’s mother’s conversations in order to scare her and control her and her children. The third person called to the witness stand today was Fritz Coleman, a weather reporter for KNBC-TV in Los Angeles. He testified that he met the complainant and his family in 1999 when they came to a club set up to help children in need. He said that that Christmas, he and another comedian named Louise Palanker gave gifts to this family in their very small apartment in an impoverished neighborhood in East Los Angeles. Coleman said that in 2000, after the family’s son developed cancer, he visited him in the hospital. In the last visit, the boy was " cheerful " because he had received " a very large box full of gifts " from Jackson. He added that he had met the complainant’s mother only three times, and during those visits she had not asked him for money. Coleman says that at the club, people talked about the complainant’s father requesting money from celebrities, but the complainant’s father never directly asked Coelman for money. In the session held tomorrow without Michael present, the prosecution and defense attorneys will discuss several motions and sentencing, including the prosecution’s request to obtain financial information about Michael Jackson. Source: eMJey.com / CNN