Posted by MAY 24 2005 — After Leno’s 30 minute stint on the stand, came more important witnesses who show the mother was after money and using non-existent medical bills to get that money. According to Savannah Guthrie (court tv), the defense called another comedian to the stand who says that during fundraisers at Jamie Masada’s “Laugh Factory”, he was under the impression that the money raised for the accuser at those fundraisers were for medical expenses. He was on the stand for a short time. Directly after which, the defense called a representative from California’s Kaiser-Permanente hospital who confirmed that there were no medical bills because the accuser’s biological father’s Teamster insurance covered all of the medial expenses. Oops. There is no question that every celebrity, including Jackson, as well as every entity who donated money to this family for “medical bills” were essentially defrauded out of hundreds if not thousands of dollars. The defense also called Mary Holzer to the stand. Her testimony was undoubtedly completely devastating to the prosecution’s “case”. She was the paralegal working for the law firm whom the mother hired to represent her in the JCPenney lawsuit. She is also yet another witness who testified about the mother coaching her children to either lie or to ask for things. Actress Vernee Watson-Johnson previously testified that she could hear the mother coaching the children on the phone to ask Johnson if they could come over and if they could sleep over at her house. Holzer says Janet Arvizo threw a temper tantrum, kicking and screaming, and called the doctor the devil. From the updated Associated Press (AP) article:
“She threw herself down on the ground, started kicking and screaming that the doctor was the devil, the nurse was the devil and they were out to get her,” Holzer said, adding that they were asked to leave the office. (see Paralegal: Mother Called Doctor ‘the devil’ – Update to AP article)
Holzer testified to Janet Arvizo’s coaching of all the children, including the accuser, in the JC Penney civil case. She that Arvizo was actually worried her youngest son wouldn’t remember what he was suppose to tell the doctor in that civil case. According to an AFP article titled “Jackson accuser coached to lie by mom in court case: legal assistant”:
A legal assistant told jurors that the mother of Michael Jackson’s child sex trial accuser appeared to have coached her children to lie under oath in a lawsuit. Paralegal Mary Elizabeth Holzer testified that the mother of the now 15-year-old accuser told her she was worried her youngest son would not remember what he was supposed to tell doctors involved in a civil suit. The family had accused US department store JC Penney security guards of hurting them and of sexually assaulting the mother when she and her children was detained on suspicion of shoplifting in 1998. (see Jackson accuser coached to lie by mom in court case: legal assistant)
Holzer says the mother insisted on being present when a doctor examined the boys in relation to that JC Penney civil suit. According to Holzer, Janet Arvizo said she was certain the older boy, the accuser in this case, would “get the story straight”, but had doubts about the younger one. More from that Associated Foreign Press (AFP) article:
Holzer, who worked for an attorney that once represented the family, said she accompanied the family to a doctor’s examination to take account of their alleged injuries. The mother had insisted on being present during a doctor’s examination of the boys and had told Holzer that while she was certain the oldest boy would “get the story straight” she could not be certain the younger one would remember to tell the story as the family had rehearsed it, Holzer said. The witness also recalled the mother telling her the children were taking acting classes. “She wanted them to become good actors so they could tell then what to say, how to behave,” Holzer told the court.
Good actors, indeed. Holzer also testified the mother revealed that those injuries on her body were actually caused by her ex-husband, not the JC Penney guards like she claimed in that lawsuit. So now she’s not only looking at lying under oath in that deposition, but also falsifying evidence in that JC Penny civil case. Holzer testified Janet Arvizo told her the biological father has a brother in the “Mexican mafia” who knows where Holzer and her 9 year old daughter lived if Holzer ever revealed what was told to her. From that aforementioned updated AP report:
Holzer also said the mother told her the injuries she claimed to have received from the guards were inflicted by her then-husband on the night of the store incident. Holzer said she told the mother that she couldn’t lie and that she needed to talk to an attorney to change her description of what had happened, but the mother then threatened her life. “She told me that (her husband’s) brother … is in the Mexican mafia … and that she knows where I live and they would come and kill me and my 9-year-old daughter,” Holzer said. She said she never reported what the mother said about her injuries because she was terrified. (see Paralegal: Mother Called Doctor ‘the devil’ – Update to AP article)
If the jury sees the mother as the mastermind to this “case” in the same way they were in the JC Penney civil case, the prosecution won’t be able to separate the accuser’s alleged “abuse” story from the mother’s illegal activities. It’s possible that they could see the mother coaching the children in this trial. Or it’s quite possible they could draw the inference that the accuser has learned how to lie under oath, run scams, etc., on people from his mother. I’ve made my opinions about the obnoxious Jay Leno quite evident since his asinine jokes about this “case” first began. But whether he liked it or not, the defense used ‘the chin’ the impeach the testimony of the accuser. Leno arrived this morning at the courthouse to talk about getting a phone call from the accuser reportedly in 2000, with the running joke being that his head arrived at the courthouse 20 minutes before the rest of him did. He did confirm a few things on the stand. He did say he talked to the accuser on the phone, which was in direct contradiction to what the accuser, Gavin Arvizo, said on the stand. G. Arvizo claimed he’s never spoken to Jay Leno and only left phone messages for him. He says he not only talked to the accuser, but also his brother and someone he assumed was the mother. The obnoxious comedian testified that he became suspicious because the boy was “overly effusive”. He says Arvizo sounded “a little scripted” in more phone calls which came after Leno’s call to the hospital. And while he says he was never directly asked for money, he commented the following, according to the AP:
“Sometimes you get a call like, ‘I’m a farmer, our tractor’s broken, our crops aren’t doing well,’ and the return address is Brooklyn, New York,” Leno said. (see Leno Was Suspicious of Jackson Accuser)
More info as we get it.