The mother of Gavin Arvizo, the alleged victim in Michael Jackson's 2005 child molestation case, has pleaded no contest on charges of benefit fraud. You might remember her as Janet Arvizo, but she is, as previously reported, confusingly now going by the name of Janet Jackson because of her marriage to one Jay Jackson. Anyway, Jackson has been ordered by a judge to perform 150 hours of community and to repay more than $8,600 to the county social services department.
The judge in the case, Barbara Johnson, said that the charges will be reduced to a misdemeanour if she pays the money and performs the community service prior to being sentenced on 27 Apr next year. Jackson would have faced up to seven years in prison, for accepting fraudulently obtained assistance and committing perjury four times on welfare applications, had she not entered the no-contest plea - which is not an admission of guilt per se but is treated as a guilty plea for sentencing purposes.
Accused of hiding the information that she had received a substantial compensation settlement from JC Penney before applying for welfare payments, Jackson maintains that she "never misrepresented anything intentionally". You will remember that when asked questions about her welfare claims by Michael Jackson's legal team when she appeared on the stand at the child abuse case, Jackson (then Arvizo...) took the fifth.