Jackson Team Goes On Offensive

Attorney Warns Profiteers Of Legal Action 'Like A Ton Of Bricks'

(CBS/AP)  Michael Jackson hasn't even be charged yet and already his attorney is defending him — not against criminal charges, but against people trying to profit from the scandal.

"Michael Jackson is not going to be abused," declared lawyer Mark Geragos. "Michael Jackson is not going to be slammed, is not going to be a piñata for every person who has financial motives."

And first, reports KCBS-TV's Sandra Mitchell, is Xtrajet, the charter company whose private jet flew Jackson to Santa Barbara to surrender to authorities on charges of child molestation.

CBS News Early Show National Correspondent Hattie Kauffman reports two secret videos were made while Jackson and his attorney were in the air.

"Somebody had the unmitigated gall to shop those tapes around to media outlets in order to sell them to the highest bidder," said Geragos.

A source close to Jackson told the Los Angeles Times that Jackson's entourage had been alerted to the existence of the tapes by CBS News.

In fact, Geragos says the molestation accusations levied against the entertainer themselves are motivated by money, even as doubts about the credibility of the boy's family began to emerge.

"If anybody doesn't think based upon what's happened so far that the true motivation of these charges and these allegations is anything but money and the seeking of money than they are living in their own Neverland," he said.

The family of the child has already been involved in two previous cases that involved abuse allegations: a lawsuit in which the family said they were battered by mall security guards, and a divorce fight in which the father pleaded no contest to spousal abuse and child cruelty.

In November 2001, J.C. Penney Co. paid the boy's family $137,500 to settle a lawsuit alleging security guards beat the boy, his mother and his brother in a parking lot after the boy left the store carrying clothes that hadn't been paid for, court records show.

The mother also contended that she was sexually assaulted by one of the guards during the 1998 confrontation.

Under a court order granted Tuesday to Jackson's legal team, Xtrajet will not be able to copy or release the videotapes taken aboard the jet, or modify the jet's audio or video equipment.

Geragos also had a warning to others who he said might be motivated by money.

"We will land on you like a ton of bricks. We will land on you like a hammer," he said. "If you do anything to besmirch this man's reputation, anything to intrude on his privacy in any way that's actionable, we will unleash a legal torrent like you've never seen."

CBSNews.com Legal Analyst Andrew Cohen says Geragos is right.

"I think he wants to send a very clear message, not just to the folks who may be involved in this episode, but to other folks down the road, that Michael Jackson has a right to defend himself both criminally and against the media onslaught that obviously has come his way," Cohen said.

"If this tape somehow makes it onto Internet, for example, it's going to be hard for Michael Jackson to get a fair trial if conversations between him and his attorney, which should have been private, are made public," he added.

Meanwhile, it appears the Michael Jackson stew will have a little longer to simmer. The Santa Barbara County District Attorney now says charges against Michael Jackson will not be filed until some time after Dec. 15.

CBS News has learned the Santa Barbara Sheriff's Department has received between 75 and 100 calls regarding Jackson, some related to the current charges.

A month before the settlement, the boy's mother had filed for divorce, beginning a bitter fight that would include criminal charges of abuse. The father's attorney, Russell Halpern, said the mother had lied about the abuse and had a "Svengali-like" ability to make her children repeat her lies.

Halpern said the father once showed him a script his wife had allegedly written for their children to use when they were questioned in a civil deposition.

"She wrote out all their testimony. I actually saw the script," Halpern said Tuesday. "I remember my client showing me, bringing the paperwork to me."

The family's past legal cases could be critical in the current molestation case, if Jackson attorneys can show the mother or the accuser lacks credibility, said Leonard Levine, a defense attorney who specializes in sexual assault cases.

"It sounds like music to a defense attorney's ears — that there have been other cases where they have sued and there is at least an argument that the allegations are similar to the ones here," Levine said, referring to the claims of physical abuse.

Jackson's spokesman, Stuart Backerman, declined comment about the past lawsuits involving the accuser's family. The Santa Barbara County district attorney's office declined to comment Tuesday.

In 2002, the boy's father was charged with four counts of child cruelty, and one count each of injuring a child, making a threat and false imprisonment. He pleaded no contest to one count of child cruelty but it was unclear from court records which of his children was involved. The other charges were dismissed.

The father also pleaded no contest to spousal abuse in 2001.