Plans to send family to Brazil
Montgomery testified that on February 25, 2003, Marc Schaffel, then-president of Jackson's Neverland Valley Entertainment, asked her to book one-way reservations to Sao Paulo for the accuser and his mother, sister and brother, with a departure date of March 1. Schaffel also had her make a separate, round-trip reservation for him, she said.
Montgomery also said that while Schaffel wanted one-way tickets for the family, she had to book a return trip for them, using an "arbitrary" date, because Brazil doesn't allow U.S. citizens to travel there on one-way tickets.
However, while reservations were made, the tickets for the family were never actually purchased because Schaffel told her their plans had changed, Montgomery said. She said she did not know if Schaffel himself went to Brazil.
The prosecution has charged that the trip to Brazil was part of a conspiracy by Jackson and five unindicted co-conspirators, including Schaffel, to control and intimidate the family after the broadcast of "Living With Michael Jackson," a television documentary by British journalist Martin Bashir that showed Jackson holding hands with his accuser.
The accuser's mother had previously testified that she was told by Jackson's associates that her family would have to go to Brazil for their own safety because she had done an inadequate job during the taping of a rebuttal video, shot about five days before Montgomery says Schaffel asked her to book the tickets.
Montgomery said she never talked to anyone in the accuser's family about the trip, nor did she speak about it with Jackson.