| ABCNews.com
Nov. 25 — Michael Jackson might say he loves children, but the 12-year-old boy who has accused the pop star of molesting him can expect to see a different side of the singer, according to a private detective who worked for the family of a boy who accused Jackson of molesting him a decade ago.
"They will terrorize the family and investigators and anybody who goes against Michael Jackson will be terrorized," private detective Ernie Rizzo said today on ABCNEWS' Good Morning America. "They do things you wouldn't believe to try and get Jackson off the hook."
In another development, Jackson's lawyer pledged to "unleash a legal torrent like you've never seen" on anyone who tried to smear the star's reputation for profit.
Rizzo said people working for Jackson bugged his car, tapped the telephone of Court TV reporter Diane Dimond and would even have people at news conferences hit him or others as they were trying to talk to reporters about the case.
But most of the effort will be directed at the accuser and his family, Rizzo said.
"Michael Jackson has been able to pull the game off so long because they come at you with hands, feet, and fists," the private detective said. "They will spend millions to embarrass you, insult you. And I feel sorry for this little boy and the family because in the next couple of years, before this trial goes to court, you're going to hear things that are horrible because they try and poison jury pools."
Meanwhile, an attorney who represented the mother of Jackson's alleged victim in her divorce told The Associated Press the family never said anything to him about the boy having been sexually abused by the singer.
Attorney Michael Manning told the AP that the last time he and the woman spoke at all about Jackson, in April or May, she was very positive about the singer. He said he has not spoken to her since late May or June, though.
"'He was really good to us' — that's what she said at the time," Manning said. "If it turned sour, I don't know how."
The woman rarely mentioned the family's visits to Jackson's Neverland Ranch, though, the lawyer told the AP.
"They didn't brag about it," he said. "They weren't star crazy."
The district attorney in the current case has said that when accusations were made against Jackson in 1993, the case never went to trial because the boy's family accepted a settlement and stopped cooperating with prosecutors. (Jackson was never charged and has denied the allegations.)
Rizzo disputed the district attorney's version of events, saying the family only accepted the millions of dollars Jackson offered to settle a civil suit brought against him after the district attorney delayed filing charge against the pop star.
And all the while, Rizzo claimed, a campaign of harassment was carried out against the boy and his family.
"The district attorney then kept dragging his feet," Rizzo said. "Weeks turned to months, months to a year. Jackson was waving a $20 million cashier's check. [The boy's father] had problems in California. The kid was laughed out of school. He [the father] lost his dental practice. They took the money and left. That was probably the best thing at the time. They were run out of California because of Jackson."
If the current case does go to trial, the tactic that Rizzo accuses Jackson of could work against him, the private detective said.
"This is going to be a double-edged sword for Michael Jackson," he said. "On the one hand he talks about how he loves children. But his attorney now is going to have to eat this kid up alive on the witness stand. … They have to be very careful how they play this. If they eat the kid up on the witness stand it's going to look very bad for Michael Jackson, but that's the only way they're going to try and win this case is discredit the child."
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