COSBY `DAUGHTER' TOURED AREA; REALTOR SAYS WOMAN INQUIRED ABOUT BUYING PRICEY HOMES IN SCV.

Byline: Larry Neumeister Associated Press 

A Santa Clarita real estate agent testified Monday that a woman who claims to be Bill Cosby's illegitimate daughter was looking to buy a $1.25 million home in Lebec and also hunted in the Santa Clarita Valley.

The house hunting - also in the pricey Sand Canyon area of Canyon Country - took place about two months before Autumn Jackson was accused of negotiating hush-money payments.

Realtor Evelyn Taibai testified that Jackson called her early in November to inquire about the four-bedroom home on 34 acres that an advertisement had said was ``suitable for horses, farming, livestock.''

In other testimony, it was revealed that Jackson signed a $24 million contract to keep quiet, telling Cosby's lawyer in a secretly recorded conversation: ``It's enough to sustain me for the time being, I guess.''

Prosecutors played the tape for jurors in the extortion trial of the 22-year-old Jackson.

Cosby's lawyer, John Schmitt, had arranged for the Jan. 18 signing after going to the FBI at Cosby's direction to complain about Jackson's threats to tell her story to tabloid newspapers.

FBI agents attached a recording device to Schmitt's shirt for the meeting in his Manhattan office with Jackson and Jose Medina, 51.

After the sound of pens scratching on the contract, Schmitt is heard leaving the room and the tape ends. Jackson and Medina were arrested on extortion and conspiracy charges just after they signed the document.

She could be sentenced to up to 12 years in prison if convicted of conspiracy, extortion and violating the interstate travel act.

Prosecutors said Jackson had demanded $40 million from Schmitt in telephone calls played for the jury last week in federal court.

Schmitt testified he told Cosby about the threat just after the entertainer learned that his son, Ennis, had been murdered Jan. 16 while changing a tire on a Los Angeles roadside.

The FBI directed Schmitt to negotiate over the telephone with Jackson, who was staying with Medina at a Burbank hotel where they were working on an unsold children's television program.

He convinced the two to come to New York to sign an agreement to keep her allegations secret in exchange for $18 million to be paid to her and $6 million to be paid to Medina, who was supposed to write a book about her.

During a phone call taped by Jackson the day before the meeting, she had tried to arrange for the money to be wired to a bank account rather than picking up a check in person. The recording was on a tape investigators seized from the couple's hotel room.

In that conversation, also played for jurors, Jackson is heard negotiating with Schmitt, agreeing to drop her demands to $25 million. Then she added, ``If I take off another 1 (million), will that help?''

At that point, an FBI agent next to Schmitt in his office drew his hand across his throat as a signal to cut off the negotiation and Schmitt agreed on the $24 million, Schmitt recalled.

``I'm looking forward to seeing you tomorrow for the first time,'' Jackson is heard saying cheerfully after Schmitt said he would arrange for plane tickets to bring them to New York City.

Cosby and prosecutors agree the actor had a brief affair with Jackson's mother but they do not concede she is his child or that the more than $100,000 he has given to Jackson and her mother in the past proves he is her father.

Jackson's lawyers insist she broke no laws because she was told her entire life that she was Cosby's daughter and believed she was negotiating for what she deserved after years of neglect.