Bruce Rheins

The CBS News producer who attempted to start a wine label called Jesus Juice while he was covering the Michael Jackson trial is beginning to backtrack after his activities were exposed.

After NewsBusters broke the story Sunday, other media outlets picked up our scoop including the Associated Press, TheSmokingGun.com and MSNBC's "Countdown." Since that time, the producer, Bruce Rheins, and his wife, Dawn Westlake, have removed all Jesus Juice material, including the label's logo, a crucified Jackson, from their respective web sites.

The New York Daily News spoke to Rheins yesterday, he disingenuously told the paper he never intended to make money from the offensive wine label:

A CBS producer who led the network's coverage of the recent Michael Jackson trial has been marketing a brand of wine under the label "Jesus Juice," complete with a logo of a Christ figure sporting a Jacksonesque red glove, fedora hat, white socks, and penny loafers

NewsBusters.org has learned that Bruce Rheins, a high-level producer for such shows as the "CBS Evening News", and his wife, Dawn Westlake, began preparations for their marketing campaign while the Jackson case was still in court, registering a U.S. trademark for the words "Jesus Juice" in January of 2004, days after word got out that Jackson referred to wine by that term in allegedly attempting to seduce young boys.

A year later, the couple registered (under Westlake's name) the web domain JesusJuice.biz, apparently with the intent of partnering with a wine maker to create a product line bearing the Jesus Juice name, in a partnership or by purchasing the trademark.