SANTA MARIA, Calif. — The mother of Michael Jackson's accuser previously testified that she wants justice, not money, from the King of Pop, but defense witnesses testified Monday that the mother has a history of lying for money.

Ten days after depositing a $32,000 civil settlement check, the mother applied for emergency welfare benefits. But she never reported the windfall on her application, according to a Los Angeles County Department of Public Services employee.

"Would that be fraud to fail to report it on this form?" defense attorney Robert Sanger asked the mother's former intake worker Mercy Manrriquez, as he projected a copy of the previously sealed Nov. 15, 2001, welfare application.

"Yes, it would," Manrriquez replied.

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Nor did the mother report thousands of dollars in donations — mostly from celebrities who sympathized with her son's life-threatening battle with cancer — that she received during the nearly two and a half years that she was on welfare, according to her welfare documents.

With days left in its case, Jackson's defense appears to be focusing on damaging the credibility of the accuser's mother, painting her as a money-hungry and litigious con.

A forensic certified public accountant testified that he examined bank statements and financial documents provided by the defense to determine that Jackson's aides spent about $7,000 on the mother and her family during the two-month period they were allegedly held in captivity in Neverland.

The defense projected receipts documenting purchases made by Jackson aides on the family's behalf at Banana Republic, the Gap and Robinson's May for clothes; beauty supplies and salon visits for the mother; new luggage for the whole family; fast food and family-style dinners at McDonald's and Outback Steakhouse, respectively; and numerous other expenses earmarked under the family name.

The mother previously testified that they were given one meal a day and that she ultimately paid for the shopping trips.

She also testified that the $32,000 check she received in 2001 was her share of a $152,000 settlement the family got from JCPenney after security guards allegedly assaulted them in 1998 when they suspected her son, Jackson's current child-molestation accuser, of shoplifting.

Manrriquez testified that, if she had known about the $32,000 settlement, the $600 Christmas gift the mother received from comedian Chris Tucker's girlfriend in 2001, the $2,000 gift from Jackson's personal videographer in 2003, and the $7,000 worth of personal expenses Jackson paid while the family was allegedly held in captivity, it might have affected the mother's welfare eligibility or reduced the $769 a month she was given.

The mother evoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination when she testified during the prosecution's case and avoided questioning about alleged welfare fraud.

The judge ruled Monday that her privileged welfare file had probative value in Jackson's case and ordered the documents unsealed.

Money, not blood

The defense also called the mother's ex-sister-in-law, who said she organized two blood drives for her nephew when he was being treated for stage-four cancer and needed transfusions.

The mother, who she had been estranged from, called after learning about the efforts, the witness said.

"She told me that she didn't need my f---ing blood, that she needed money," the witness said as she choked back tears and wiped her eyes with a tissue. (Courttv.com has chosen not to identify the sister-in-law in order to protect the accuser's identity.)

"I think I just hung up on her," the witness said when asked how she responded to the cold reception.

She conceded, however, that she never visited the boy in the hospital, nor did she have a relationship with the family.

Another witness, an editor at a weekly newspaper, testified that she was "duped" into assigning a human interest story that focused on the family's hardships and the boy's struggle through chemotherapy.

"I had some bad feelings," Connie Keenan, editor of the Mid Valley News, said of a 2000 front-page story written by an intern at the paper, which included information about how to contribute to a trust account in the boy's name.

"The mother wanted an additional story because she didn't make enough money from the first story — those are her words, not mine," Keenan said.

Keenan told jurors that the mother called her five times asking for another article to be written.

The mother has previously testified that she only agreed to do the story as a favor to a budding journalist and that she has never asked for money because her son's medical bills were covered by insurance.

Keenan said she only learned about the boy's insurance coverage months after the fact.

"The whole slant of the article was how expensive it was for his medical care," Keenan said, adding that she initially questioned a section in which the mother claimed it cost $12,000 for one chemo injection, but then let it stay in the final piece.

The mother previously testified that $12,000 was a typo and that she told the reporter it was $1,200. But Keenan insisted that her reporter checked the taped interview with the mother to confirm that she stated a figure of $12,000 per injection.

However, the editor conceded on cross-examination that she did not independently verify the tape herself.

Jackson, 46, is accused of 10 counts, including committing lewd acts on the 13-year-old cancer survivor, giving him alcohol as a means to committing the lewd acts, and conspiring with his aides to falsely imprison the boy, his two siblings and their mother at Neverland ranch in February and March 2003.

He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.