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ACCUSER AND FAMILY:
Troubled times have included financial woes, child's illness
By DAWN HOBBS
NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
STEVE MALONE/NEWS-PRESS PHOTO
The boy's home in Los Angeles.
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The Los Angeles family at the center of the child molestation case against Michael Jackson endured financial hardship, allegations of domestic violence and the life-threatening illness of a child before first meeting the entertainer in August 2000.
During a series of pretrial hearings, defense attorneys have made it clear that they plan to attack the credibility of the family that has accused their client of grave offenses. The prosecution has portrayed the family as vulnerable innocents, but the defense has repeatedly called the boy a liar coached by a mother who has shown a pattern of making up similar accusations for financial gain.
A gag order imposed by the judge in the case bars the family, attorneys and potential witnesses in the case from talking to the media. However, the News-Press pieced together a picture of the family using hundreds of pages of court documents, confidential psychological reports, police records and interviews.
THE MOTHER
The boy's mother -- called Jane Doe by the court to protect the identity of her son -- was born in July 1968 in Hollywood. She attended El Monte High School, where she met the man who would become her husband and the father of three of her children. They married in Las Vegas in 1985. She was 16. He was 18. Their first child, a girl, was born in February 1986, four months before Ms. Doe's high school graduation. The couple lived with Ms. Doe's parents in El Monte until they could afford their own place.
Ms. Doe says she attended Citrus Community College and Cal State Los Angeles, where she studied criminal justice.
Her second child, the boy who would later become Mr. Jackson's accuser, was born in December 1989. Her third child, another boy, was born almost exactly a year later.
She's done the best she can to raise her children, despite an allegedly abusive husband and the current criminal case, sources said.
"The mom, who has had a very difficult life with an abusive husband and an abusive father is doing her best to try to cope with this situation," a family friend said. "It's her overriding belief in God that has gotten her through this."
The last several years have been marked by problems for Ms. Doe.
In early 1997, she worked at Vons in the security division, earning about $17 per hour. She quit, citing long hours, but later filed a state disability claim. She said she was depressed over "being sad about being a nobody with no job, kids in school with time on her hands, just a sad housewife getting fat," according to a report prepared by a defense psychiatrist in a civil lawsuit Ms. Doe filed against J.C. Penney Co. Inc.
PHOTO COURTESY OF ABC TV
Above, Michael Jackson and his young accuser are shown holding hands in Martin Bashir's 2003 documentary "Living with Michael Jackson."
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In that lawsuit, Ms. Doe alleged that in September 1998 a security guard beat her after her son allegedly shoplifted. Months later, she added the allegation that the guard had sexually molested her. She was treated for depression at a Kaiser Hospital in Hollywood, according to Dr. John Hochman, the defense psychiatrist who prepared the report after interviewing Ms. Doe and her family and reviewing records. In police reports, officers stated that they saw no injuries and heard no complaints of sexual abuse. The $3 million lawsuit was settled by J.C. Penney for $137,000.
The family moved back into Ms. Doe's parents' house, where she described her daily routine as "praying and spending time with family," the report states. Ms. Doe's father has been a truck driver for Ralphs since he was 17 years old. She has one brother who works in banking and another at an oil refinery. "She describes them as being better than her as 'they are successful in life,' " the report states.
She worked at Monrovia Unified School District for a couple of months and then in December 1999 was hired at a Southern California Hilton Hotel, but told her therapist she soon quit because a co-worker reminded her of someone from the J.C. Penney incident, according to the psychiatrist's report. In May 2000, Ms. Doe took a job as a waitress.
In June 2000, Ms. Doe's middle child was diagnosed with cancer. The cancer went into remission a year later.
She separated from her husband in October 2001. Before their divorce was final in April 2004, Ms. Doe began dating a man she met through a military camp her sons attended in West Los Angeles. The mother and boys moved to West Los Angeles to her fiancé's apartment in July 2003. Ms. Doe's daughter moved in with her parents in El Monte. The couple married in May 2004 and had a baby that summer.
THE BOY
When the boy who has accused Mr. Jackson of molestation takes the stand, jurors and courtroom onlookers will see a muscular 15-year-old with a deep voice and budding facial hair -- rather than the much thinner, more fragile 13-year-old cancer victim who was allegedly molested. The court refers to him as John Doe.
Despite the worldwide publicity surrounding the case, the boy is succeeding in school, playing football and getting on the best he can, a family friend said.
"The boy has been through tremendous obstacles for such a young person -- from literally having to first fight for his life and now fighting for his integrity, while at the same time trying his best to function normally," the friend said.
"It is difficult for children when they're teenagers in a perfect world, let alone in a world when every day someone in their family is trashed by the media. And they have to live in secrecy to limit this invasion of their privacy."
The boy's mother described him as a child who "always speaks his mind . . . he's a jokester."
She said he's "the most honest and thoughtful of all the children," Dr. Hochman's report stated. The boy told the psychiatrist his father was a "fun dad" and his mother "a nice lady . . . loving and caring."
English was his favorite subject in school. He had a few friends, "but not a best friend."
He told the psychiatrist that "he had problems in school being picked on by kids for no reason and that the principal would never listen to his version of things because there were so many kids against him; he would also argue with teachers about how to do things," the report stated.
The boy had been taking tap-dancing lessons and was in a ballet group preparing for a performance of "The Nutcracker Suite," but he was forced to stop when the family needed money for attorneys in the J.C. Penney lawsuit. The family van was also repossessed.
In the summer of 2000, Ms. Doe enrolled her children in a summer camp for underprivileged children, sponsored by Laugh Factory owner Jamie Masada. Fritz Coleman, a Los Angeles weatherman and stand-up comic, said the boy "had a real bright essence about himself on the stage. With little guidance, he could probably be a great performer."
In June 2000, the boy, then 11, was diagnosed with cancer. He lost his left kidney, multiple lymph nodes and spleen. His weight dropped from 100 to 68 pounds. One night, he overheard doctors at Kaiser Hospital tell his parents he was going to die, according to sources.
Mr. Masada rallied entertainment industry stars to support his young friend. George Lopez stopped by regularly. Chris Tucker visited; Jerry Seinfeld, Jay Leno and Adam Sandler sent best wishes. And Mr. Jackson called. The boy and his family visited Neverland Valley Ranch in August 2000. In September 2002, he asked the children to do an interview for a television documentary.
Five months later, Mr. Jackson flew the boy and his family to Miami in order to speak at a press conference to combat the bad publicity generated by the documentary, prosecutors have said in court. In the documentary, the boy and Mr. Jackson are holding hands when the entertainer states he shares his bed with children. The press conference did not take place. They returned to Neverland to make a video to rebut the documentary. The boy alleges that Mr. Jackson then molested him on four occasions at Neverland.
Mr. Jackson has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
For Christmas 2003, the boy and his family went to Virginia to visit his mother's fiancé, a major in the Army. While there, the boy enrolled in a military camp called the Petty Officer Leadership Academy at Norfolk Naval Base. He graduated from the camp, got involved in the U.S. Sea Cadet Corps and now wants to go into the military.
THE SIBLINGS
The boy's sister, known as Judy Doe, will turn 19 at the end of March. She moved in with her grandparents after her mother remarried. The girl attended Hollywood High School, where she received good grades and was involved in the performing arts. Ms. Doe described her first-born to the defense psychiatrist as "a good girl and good sister."
Beginning in June 2000, she spent a lot of time at the hospital trying to cheer up her brother. She was in the room on New Year's Eve 2001 when Chris Tucker came to visit shortly after midnight.
In police reports from fall of 2001, the girl told police that her father hit her and her brothers in the stomach and slapped them in the face. She said: "Sometimes, if he hit my stomach, it knocked the wind out of me."
She told police that in August 2001, her father hit her so hard in the stomach that she fell to her knees, a police report stated. "(The girl), for her entire life, remembers seeing his violent behavior toward the family," the police report stated.
The father was arrested in November 2001 when police responded to a disturbance at the house. He subsequently pleaded no contest to charges of domestic violence and child cruelty.
The boy's younger brother was born one year and nine days after him. He's referred to as James Doe. His mother described him as a "good boy . . . very loving . . . very receptive to his environment."
In January 2001, the brother was taken to the emergency room with a headache that his mother feared was a brain tumor, a psychiatric report indicates. However, he was diagnosed as suffering from "stress related to his brother's illness."
"Everyone gets along at home, and his father is nice, even though he 'looks mean,' " the psychiatrist reported that the boy said.
"(The brother) states that he goes to church on a pretty regular basis, however, he doesn't meet anyone there," according to the psychiatrist's report. "He likes to watch television and he likes 'Sesame Street' cartoons. Last year, (the brother) stated that he went to boxing classes. However, he had to stop when his brother got sick."
The brother is expected to testify that he saw Mr. Jackson molest the boy on two occasions.
The brother says he wants to be an investor, a doctor or a lawyer when he grows up.
Dawn Hobbs also works as a news analyst for NBC and MSNBC.
Her e-mail is dhobbs@newspress.com.
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