Flack: Jackson Camp Wanted Smear

Says Aides Planned To Make Accuser's Mom Look Like 'Crack Whore'

(CBS/AP)  A public relations specialist who worked for Michael Jackson six days told jurors the pop singer's team planned a smear campaign against the mother of his young accuser.

Public relations specialist Ann Marie Kite, hired to help rehabilitate Jackson's image after the airing of a damaging documentary, testified that Jackson's support team became frantic in February 2003 when the accuser and his family suddenly left Jackson's Neverland estate, reports CBS News Correspondent Steve Futterman. Sometime later, she said, after the family returned, a Jackson lawyer told her that they had the accuser's mother on video and were going to make her look like a "crack whore."

Jackson, 46, is accused of molesting a 13-year-old cancer survivor at his Neverland ranch in 2003, giving him alcohol and conspiring to hold the boy's family captive after the program aired.

The prosecution, which called Kite, has alleged that Jackson's team wanted help with a public rebuttal to the British documentary, in which Jackson said he allowed young boys to sleep in his bed.

At one point the judge became agitated by the seemingly never-ending cross-examination of Kite by defense attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr., reports Futterman. Judge Rodney Melville interrupted Mesereau, saying he had asked the same questions ten times already. Then the judge said, "You need to look at this jury and realize they are tired of hearing this."

Kite also said she was concerned during her employment that Jackson was a victim of people in his inner circle who either botched his public relations or deliberately tried to damage his reputation.

She said she believed one of the singer's five alleged co-conspirators in the case, Ronald Konitzer, may have been trying to wrest away ownership of a valuable music catalogue that includes The Beatles' songs. None of the alleged co-conspirators has been indicted.

Kite said she became alarmed when Jackson associate Marc Schaffel told her that the 13-year-old boy had left Neverland in the middle of the night with his family on Feb. 13, 2003, a week after the documentary "Living With Michael Jackson" aired.

She said Schaffel, another alleged co-conspirator who has not been indicted, told her the family had been returned to the ranch and "the situation had been contained."

She said she then contacted her ex-boyfriend, David LeGrand, a lawyer for Jackson who had hired her. "I said, 'Don't make me believe that these people were hunted down like dogs and brought back to the ranch,'" she said.

She said he told her, "I can't discuss this right now."

Kite said LeGrand told her several days later that the family would not be a problem. "He said that they no longer had to worry about (the mother) because they had her on tape and they were going to make her look like a crack whore," she said.

The conversation was apparently a reference to a videotaped statement the boys' family made on Feb. 19 and 20, 2003, in which they praised Jackson.

Defense attorneys say the family was free to leave.

Kite said she was hired on Feb. 9, 2003, six days after the documentary aired, and was terminated on Feb. 15 with no reason given. A former Jackson lawyer, Mark Geragos, later asked her to sign a confidentiality agreement but she refused because she believed "it was designed to shut me up," the witness said.

Kite called the documentary "an absolute disaster" for the pop star. On a scale of one to ten, she testified, this was a 25.