LOS ANGELES -- The attorney for the father of the 12-year-old boy in the center of the Michael Jackson controversy spoke to the media Thursday evening.

H. Russell Halper told reporters that his client believes the boy's mother is unfit and does not believe that the pop superstar victimized his son.

"Either she places a child in a home in which he's in danger of being molested, or the alternative, she is encouraging a child to make false accusations," Halper said. "Either way, it makes her unfit."

The boy is a cancer patient who stayed at Jackson's Neverland Ranch on a few occasions.

The boy is in the center of a bitter divorce and custody battle.

Halper said that the father lost custody of his son because the boy's mother accused him of abuse. Those charges were later dropped, according to NBC4. The father is currently unemployed.

The boy's mother had nothing negative to say about Jackson when she told a British newspaper earlier this year that "at no time has (her son) ever been treated with anything other than love, respect and the deepest kindness by Michael."

Jackson was booked on suspicion of child molestation Thursday.

Authorities released no details of the case beyond a warrant alleging violations of a law prohibiting lewd or lascivious acts with a child under age 14, and punishable by three to eight years in prison.

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