Could the Michael Jackson case get any wierder?

An executive with a Santa Monica charter jet company under investigation for secretly taping Michael Jackson has served for years as an FBI informant, sources said Wednesday. Though there is no evidence that authorities knew about XtraJet's surreptitious recordings of the pop star until after they were disclosed Monday, sources inside and outside law enforcement said company executive Jeffrey Borer worked as a bureau informant in Los Angeles.

In an interview late Wednesday, the 59-year-old Marina del Rey man denied ever serving as a government informant. The claim, he said, is "absolutely not true. I don't know where that came from.... If you print that, you'll get in big trouble," he said.

The company now denies it knew the hidden cameras were recording Jackson. Borer denies he's an informant. Where did the rumor come from? Possibly this?

Long before his name surfaced in the Jackson case, documents and interviews show, Borer has had brushes with the law. Most notably, federal records show, Borer was criminally prosecuted by the U.S. attorney's office in 1988. Though the nature of the case could not be determined immediately, records also show that a Jeffrey M. Borer was listed as an inmate in the federal prison system and was released in 1991.

Borer declined to discuss his prison time other than to say, "It is a matter of public record." Asked about Borer's prison history, his attorney, Stone, said: "I believe he has served time in prison."

So, is he or isn't he?