nypost-041005

93 ‘MYSTERY VICTIM’ MIGHT EMERGE TO SINK JACKO
The New York Post
632480 All Editions
News
Published: 04/10/2005
Page: 008
Keywords: Analysis
‘93 ‘MYSTERY VICTIM’ MIGHT EMERGE TO SINK JACKO
Byline: By DIANE DIMOND

SANTA MARIA, Calif. - There is a ghost hanging over the Michael Jackson child-molestation case.
He is the “mystery boy” who in 1993 claimed that Jackson had repeatedly molested him.

He and his family got a settlement of more than $20 million. They are all on the witness list - but no one knows for sure if they’ll ever tell their story to a jury.

Meanwhile, his name - not revealed by most of the mainstream press out of respect for the privacy rights of sexual-abuse victims - is mentioned in open court here, almost as often as Jackson’s.

A number of other boys have come forward. The jury has heard from the 15-year-old recovering cancer patient at the center of this case; he testified to at least two instances of molestation. And his younger brother gave an eyewitness account of two other acts of what he described as sexual abuse - not remembered by his brother because he had drunk so much alcohol.

Plus, a 24-year-old youth pastor, a former Jackson maid’s son, described three acts of fondling he said he endured while spending time with Jackson in the late 1980s and early ’90s.
By this point, jurors have to be wondering when they’ll hear from the mystery boy - now a man of 25 living in Manhattan.

Sources say that may not happen.

They say he feels he has put the alleged molestation behind him, fears revealing his identity in open court and believes it is now up to others to deal with the self-anointed King of Pop.

Twelve years since his parents accepted the settlement, the young man has yet to speak again to his mom, who he believes could have saved him. She is expected to take the stand and testify to having accepted expensive gifts and jet-set travel from Jackson while allowing her son and Michael to close the door on a bedroom for at least 30 straight nights.

She will have to tell what happened, sources say, in painful but courageous testimony. But will her son see it as the mea culpa he’s waited 12 years to hear? Will he deem it adequate enough to break his own silence?
If so, he may change his mind and testify - the Jackson camp’s worst nightmare. The young man’s name and picture are already all over the Web. And the money is securely his. Maybe after his mother testifies, he, too, will find the courage to do so.

Since his case never went to trial, he is seen as an alleged victim in the eyes of the court. The only way to shed that burdensome title is to replace it with something else.

If this young man comes to this court and repeats the story of molestation set down in his 1993 court papers, then another boy - a 15-year-old who fought fourth-stage cancer and beat it - may soon call him a hero.