Michael Jackson's accuser was aware of similar claims from 1993 before he made allegations that the singer molested him, an investigator who worked for the pop star told NBC News.
Private investigator Bradley Miller, whose office was searched the same day as Jackson's Neverland ranch, spoke about the case for the first time on MSNBC's "Abrams Report."
When he asked the accuser's mother if any sexual abuse had occurred, Miller insisted, she unequivocally responded "that Michael would never do anything like that."
Miller said he was told by Jackson associates, to keep a "loose watch" on the accuser and his family. Jackson's team was worried the accuser and his family might fabricate stories or go to the media if they weren't paid, Miller said, and was told to record a tape with the family praising Jackson to have as evidence in case they publicly smeared the singer.
The team was trying to take care of "a potential problem, a loose cannon," Miller said, after the accuser's family indicated they might go public unless they were compensated.
"When they started making threats, Michael realized this was not the family he needed around him," he told NBC's Dan Abrams. "He would have done anything he could have at that time to distance himself from them or to distance them from him."
Miller has been called as a witness by both district attorney Thomas Sneddon and lead defense lawyer Tom Mesereau Jr. He conducted surveillance on the accuser's family in the wake of the 2003 documentary in which Jackson admitted he shared his bed with young boys.
Though participants in the Jackson case are under a gag order, Miller apparently conducted the interview prior to being subpoenaed as a potential witness.
Sneddon described the tape made by Miller in his opening statements to jurors, telling them it was full of blanks and was heavily edited. The accuser's sister, on the stand Thursday, offered a similar description of how the tape was made.
"When Brad Miller didn't like an answer, he would stop it, he would erase it, he would go back, and he would tell them what to say," Sneddon said.
But in the interview, additional portions of which will be aired in coming days, Miller insisted the family was out to extort Jackson. "This family, every conversation I had with them, every meeting I had with them, any interaction with them centered around either money, fame, celebrity and/or possessions," he said.