N.Y. Daily News- The cancer kid in the Michael Jackson sex scandal is sick again and living in poverty – while the star’s handlers vow to crush anyone who maligns the self-styled King of Pop.
Jamie Masada, the Hollywood comedy club owner who first brought together Jackson and the boy, visited the 13-year-old a few days ago and was shocked.
“He only has one kidney and it’s failing him, and part of his face is swollen up,” Masada said. “His cancer’s in remission, but he worries if the cancer comes back, what’s going to happen.”
Masada met the boy three years ago at a comedy camp he runs for underprivileged kids, and said the funny, sweet youngster charmed everyone.
When the boy was diagnosed with cancer and given weeks to live, Masada did all he could to fulfill his deathbed wish and arranged a meeting with Jackson.
Now that the boy has accused Jackson of molesting him at Neverland, Masada is ridden with guilt – and standing by the child and his family. “They’re poor people, simple people,” he said.
The family has so little money that the boy and his siblings were sleeping on the floor until Masada took them a bunk bed.
Their mother, who is divorced, sat with a Bible in her lap, quoting Scripture with tears in her eyes, Masada said.
“It just breaks your heart,” he said. “It’s hard to see the powerful people going up against the little people.”
Jackson’s high-powered lawyer, Mark Geragos, gave the public a glimpse of what anyone who takes on the oddball entertainer can expect. “We will land on you like a ton of bricks … if you do anything to besmirch this man’s reputation,” he said.
“Michael Jackson is not going to be slammed, is not going to be a pi%F1ata for every person who has financial motives.”
Geragos lashed out after the charter airline that ferried Jackson from Las Vegas to his booking in California last week tried to hawk secret videotape of the trip to news outlets.
People who have seen the video reported that Jackson was calm and smiling on the trip home from his police booking.
Geragos obtained a restraining order against the airline, XtraJet, filed suit against them and threatened to put them out of business.
But he didn’t stop there – taking the hardest line yet against Jackson’s adolescent accuser.
“If anybody doesn’t think … the true motivation of these charges and these allegations is anything but money and the seeking of money, they are living in their own Neverland,” Geragos railed.
Private investigator Ernie Rizzo – who worked for the family of the 13-year-old who accused Jackson of molestation in 1993 – thinks Jackson’s team will make good on their threats with “terror tactics.”
“That’s what he did last time,” Rizzo said. “He’ll send out his goons.”
Led by recently jailed private eye Anthony Pellicano, they bugged phones, put electronic tails on cars, spread rumors and sabotaged press conferences, Rizzo said.
“This whole family is in for something terrible,” he said of Jackson’s new accuser.
Masada said he didn’t ask Jackson’s new accuser whether he has been harassed, but his mother is “very upset” by the suggestion she’s a gold-digger. “She keeps saying, ‘God will help us,'” he said. “It’s a sad situation.”