Reuters Posted online: Friday, June 18, 2004 at 1138 hours IST
Los Angeles, June 18: Beleaguered pop star Michael Jackson on Thursday criticised the unknown person who leaked details of his reported $23 million settlement of a 1990s child molestation case to the media.
"These kind of attacks and leaks seek to try the case in the press rather than to a jury who will hear all of the evidence and show that I did not and would not, ever, harm a child," the singer said in a statement posted on his Web site.
CourtTv reported earlier this week that it had obtained confidential documents from the settlement, which showed that Jackson in 1994 agreed to set up a $15.3 million trust fund for the boy who had accused him of child molestation.
The U.S. television network said Jackson also paid the boy an undisclosed lump sum as well as $1.5 million to each of his parents and $5 million, plus expenses, to their attorney.
Though it has long been reported that the 45-year-old entertainer paid millions of dollars to settle the civil case, CourtTv was the first to make public a copy of the legal agreement itself and report details of the payments.
The leak comes as Jackson battles a 10-count Santa Barbara County, California grand jury indictment that charges him with committing lewd acts on a boy under the age of 14 as well as child abduction, extortion and false imprisonment.
Little of the evidence in that case has come to light and Superior Court Judge Rodney Melville, who sits in Santa Maria, California, has imposed a strict "gag" order on all parties.
"I respect the obligation of confidentiality imposed on all of the parties in the 1993 proceedings," Jackson said. "Yet someone has chosen to violate the confidentiality of those proceedings. Whoever is now leaking this material is now showing as much disrespect for the Santa Maria Court's gag order. as they are a determination to attack me."
Jackson said that the leaks should be "seen for what they are -- an attempt to influence the jury in Santa Maria.
"I ask all of my neighbors in Santa Maria, the people to whom I give my loyal trust and admiration, to keep an open mind and give me a chance to show that I am completely innocent of these charges," he said. "I will not let you down."
