Michael Jackson's Trials

Michael Jackson's Trials

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The Ongoing Trials of The Late Michael Jackson

Friday, March 18, 2005

Stormy Weather

Fritz Coleman, the weather forecaster for KNBC in Los Angeles and a standup comedian, gave testimony at the Michael Jackson trial yesterday.

He told the court that he befriended the Arvizo family, and gave them gifts and helped raise money even though they never asked him for anything.

Seemingly Gavin Arvizo was introduced to Jackson through the owner of a Hollywood club, who ran a comedy camp for underprivileged youth.

Coleman, during his testimony, said that he was very taken with the children and willingly offered to help them.

Coleman, speaking of Gavin, Star and Davellin said:

"I found them personable and polite and charismatic."

Coleman said that he first met them in 1999, when he was teaching a class at the Laugh Factory in Hollywood; the story there was that the family was impoverished, and needed help.

Coleman said that he and a friend, comedian Louise Palanker, bought hundreds of dollars worth of gifts and took them to the family's one-room East Los Angeles apartment at Christmas. Quote:

"I got the feeling this might be the only Christmas they would have,".

When he heard that Gavin had cancer he went to visit him in the hospital. Coleman said:

"He appeared very drawn and pale. This was in the darkest days of his diagnosis when they were not sure he was going to make it. It was very hard to watch..".

Coleman then took part in a fund-raiser and blood drive for Gavin, and made announcements on his TV broadcast urging people to come.

Thomas Mesereau asked whether Coleman was aware that the family had collected more than $100,000 in a lawsuit against J.C. Penney.

Coleman said he didn't know that. He also said that he didn't know he had been mentioned by the mother in the J.C. Penney lawsuit.

Seemingly Janet Jackson (nee Arvizo) had also told Los Angeles police that Coleman was going to help her in a domestic violence dispute with her husband. Something that was "news" to Coleman as well!

Coleman said that he heard at the Laugh Factory that Gavin's father had approached comedian George Lopez, and "was fairly persistent about it. He was becoming a problem."

Mesereau asked Coleman how he knew that the family was needy. Coleman said it was a requirement for families taking part in the Laugh Factory camp.

On his last visit to see Gavin at the hospital, Coleman said, he saw a huge box of gifts from Jackson.

"I remember (Gavin) beaming that this was a gift from Michael,".

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