'Jesus Juice' to be bottled in Michael Jackson jibe

LOS ANGELES (AFP) - An ingenious US couple is moving to bottle and sell pop icon Michael Jackson's high-profile child sex trial -- in the form of an irreverent brand of wine dubbed "Jesus Juice".

 

A journalist who covered the four-month trial and his actress wife have applied to trademark the name for a full-bodied merlot, inspired by claims by Jackson's teenage accuser that the star plied him with wine decanted into a soft drink can that he dubbed "Jesus Juice".

 

In documents posted on the website thesmokinggun.com, Bruce Rheins and Dawn Westlake sought to register a "Jesus Juice" logo featuring a photograph of a scantily-clad man in a crucifixion pose, wearing a Jackson-like sequined glove and a black fedora obscuring his face

 

Jackson's spokeswoman, Raymone Bain, said the plan to use the name "Jesus Juice" and the image depicting a Jackson-esque Christ figure was "outrageous and offensive" and may trigger legal action by the singer.

 

"I think it's outrageous and offensive and Mr Jackson's attorneys are looking into the matter," she told AFP, declining however to say whether the star, who is in Bahrain, is personally aware of the cheeky wine project.

 

Rheins and Westlake filed the trademark application, which is still under review, in January 2004, just two months after the superstar was arrested on charges that he molested a 13-year-old boy.

 

During the trial, his young accuser told jurors that Jackson offered him wine concealed in a Coca-Cola can that the singer called "Jesus Juice" during a flight across the United States in early 2003.

 

But the trial jury did not believe the boy's version of events and found Jackson innocent on all 10 counts in June.

 

Shortly after his acquittal, the entertainer left the United States for the Gulf state of Bahrain where he has spent most of the last five months.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/08112005/323/jesu...ckson-jibe.html