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"It is an unsubstantiated rumor and there is no investigation," court administrator Darrel Parker told the Associated Press. Not only are jurors strictly barred by judicial law from discussing cases prior to deliberation, but a gag order exists in the Jackson case.
On the witness stand Monday, a 24-year-old man tearfully testified that Jackson inappropriately touched him in the late 1980s and in 1990, each time while tickling him.
Robert Cole, a foreign editor for the British news station Sky News, said that as he walked past the jurors' break area he overheard one juror imitating someone crying and others laughing in response.
"All I heard was, 'He was like uh-huh-huh (imitating a crying sound),' and then I heard laughter. It sounded like they had just heard this kid crying, and they were kind of laughing at what had happened, mimicking him. I didn't hear any names or anything. ... I don't know if they were talking about him or not," AP quotes Cole as saying.
One erroneous report quoted the juror as saying, "Oh boohoo, Michael Jackson tickled me," but Cole said that was not the case. He also said another reporter also heard the conversation. That reporter declined to comment to the AP, and others in the case are not permitted to comment, owing to the gag order.
