Billie Jean Jackson (also known as Lavon Powlis, Lavon A. Muhammad and Gabriella Jamilla Jackson)
Lavon Powlis first came to public attention in 1987, when she filed a $150 million paternity suit against the pop singer Michael Jackson in a court in the US stateofIllinois. The then-39-year-old Powlis, calling herself "Billie Jean Jackson", claimed that she had been in a relationship with the entertainer and that he had proposed marriage to her at one point. The unemployed legal secretary further alleged that Jackson had sexual intercourse with her and that she had gave birth to three children by him. One of the children was claimed to have been conceived in May 1975, after a 16-year-old Jackson invited Powlis to Los Angeles, California, where the singer supposedly impregnated her in a blue Rolls Royce outside of his house. The woman asserted that she had been the inspiration for Jackson's hit song, "Billie Jean", and that she had sought the legal action after the musician had failed to pay support for their three children, which included a pair of 6-year-old twins. Powlis filed the suit without the presence of an attorney and stated at the time, "Michael got me pregnant and I want Michael to pay for it".
Several newspapers reported that a spokesman for a state welfare agency had revealed that Powlis had accused other male celebrities of fathering her children, and that Jackson was yet another.[a] It was made known in court that the woman had harrassed Jackson for five years, by claiming to be his wife and loitering near his home in California. Powlis lost custody of her children in 1985, after she was charged with lack of supervision.[b] In 1986, Powlis was served with a restraining order. Under the conditions of the order, she was not allowed within 100 yards of Jackson's Encino home. Powlis, who had demanded that court officials call her "Billie Jean Jackson" after legally changing her name, had her paternity suit dropped in January 1988. Website msnbc.com later acknowledged that "the kids were not his sons".
Billie Jean found herself back in court in December 1988, when she violated the terms of her 1986 restraing order. Throughout the year, she had attempted unsuccessfully to have Jackson pay for a wedding dress, as well as to cover the costs of a $145 medical bill. Deputy District Attorney David Kestenbaum asserted that Jackson had never met the woman. Billie Jean pleaded innocent to eight misdemeanor charges, which included one for trespassing on the grounds of the entertainer's mansion. She was found to be guilty, however, and was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison by Judge Stephen E. O'Neil. Furthermore, Billie Jean was told to stay away from Jackson and to stop misrepresenting herself as his wife.
Billie Jean was placed on conditional probation in 1996, after being convicted of stalking Jackson. She was also banned from coming within 500 yards of his homes in Encino and Santa Barbara, as well as his Los Angeles-based company. A year later, she was arrested for the eighth time at his Neverland Ranch. In March 2008, a similar incident occured, when Billie Jean was arrested for trespassing at Jackson's Californian property. After being caught climbing a fence to get into the ranch, she told security guards that she was the singer's wife, thus, making Neverland her property as well. A Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department spokesperson stated that the guards "turned her away, but she just moved a few yards down the road and climbed over the fence." Billie Jean was released by the police on $2500 bail.
Billie Jean filed another suit against Jackson in December 2008. She claimed that she was the biological mother of the singer's 6-year-old son, Prince Michael II (also known as "Blanket"), and revealed that she sought $1 billion in support of the child. She further alleged that she was secretly married to Jackson and that she wanted joint custody of Prince Michael II, as well as routine visits and a say in his education. According to the legal papers of the lawsuit, the complaint was filed because Billie Jean "always is arrested at the home of her husband, Michael J. Jackson".
Following Michael Jackson's death in June 2009, Billie Jean requested that the judge in the case hire a handwriting expert to check the singer's will for forgeries and asked for the right to visit Prince Michael II every Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 2 pm. Billie Jean further requested not to be arrested by Jackson's mother, Katherine, or estate executor, John Branca.
^ a: Despite Jackson not being the first famous male to be accused of fathering Powlis' children, he was the first to be brought into a paternity suit.
^ b: The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services took custody of Powlis' children, and they moved in with their mother's relatives in New York.
