MJ-Upbeat

May 5, 2005

Day 45: Prosecution's Anticlimactic Finish, Judge Considers Acquittal


Created: Thursday, 05 May 2005

Wednesday, May 4, 2005

On day 45 the only dramatic flourish - a routine motion for acquittal - came from the defense. Otherwise, the end of the prosecution's nearly 10-week case against Michael Jackson was strictly no-frills and typical for this prosecution, without substantially convincing impact.

After his final witness left the stand Wednesday, for example, Sneddon advised Judge Rodney S. Melville that he would need to introduce several items into evidence before the prosecution could formally rest.

Melville responded that the prosecution could reopen its case depending on whether he decided to admit the items.

Prosecutors' anticlimactic finish capped a case that has included more than 80 witnesses - often mesmerizing and contradictory - but also long days of dry testimony about phone records, how search of Mr. Jackson's Neverland ranch was conducted, and how fingerprints are taken.

"It's not the smoothest, most polished finish for the jury, but it's not atypical," said Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School. "They're treating this like any other case and the rest of the world isn't. You'd like to end with a big finish, but maybe they didn't have a big finish."

Many of the prosecution's own witnesses wound up benefiting the defense, including Mr. Jackson's ex-wife Deborah Rowe, who cast him as a victim and praised his parenting skills.

Prosecutors appeared blindsided when Ms. Rowe, the mother of his two eldest children, contradicted Sneddon's opening statement claim that she would relate being manipulated by Mr. Jackson associates.

Instead, she called the unindicted alleged coconspirators "opportunistic vultures" and said they conspired against Mr. Jackson, not with him, scheming to make millions from his troubles.

The final witness, Rudy Provencio, told the jury about hearing a phone discussion in which Mr. Jackson's associates talked with Mr. Jackson about response to a damaging documentary about him.

But the witness, who used to work for a Mr. Jackson associate, did not tie Mr. Jackson to the heart of the alleged conspiracy, quoting Mr. Jackson only as saying such things as that he didn't want to hold a press conference.

Provencio then came under withering cross-examination by Mr. Mesereau. Provencio acknowledged that two weeks ago he was given a copy of an interview he gave to law enforcement long ago, and when asked to check it for accuracy, wrote in changes to implicate Mr. Jackson in the alleged conspiracy .

Provencio, told jurors that he worked with Mr. Jackson over a two-year period as Mr. Jackson and an associate, Marc Schaffel, tried to put together a charity record.

That project fell apart over controversy stemming from Schaffel's background as a pornographer, Provencio said, but he overheard a series of phone calls between Mr. Jackson and associates in February and March of 2003 dealing with the fallout from the documentary.

It was during those calls, he said, that a plan was hatched to film a so-called rebuttal tape involving Mr. Jackson's young accuser and his family -- a tape that has become central to the conspiracy charges.

Provencio recalled the idea for a rebuttal tape emerging as Schaffel and another Mr. Jackson aide counseled Mr. Jackson that his accuser's family "could ruin your career, they could blackmail you."

Later Provencio, who claims that he took copious notes during his employment with Mr. Jackson, said Schaffel alarmed him when he made "a flippant remark about killers" pursuing the family.

Mr. Mesereau pointed out Provencio had not mentioned the "killers" in his first interview with police and had failed to name Mr. Jackson when he was first naming those involved in what he considered the suspicious events of early 2003.

The defense request for acquittal focused mostly on the conspiracy charge, seizing on two recent elements of the prosecution's case: a display of calls from Mr. Jackson associates' phones that could not be linked to Mr. Jackson directly, and testimony from Ms. Rowe that he was the victim of "opportunistic vultures" in his inner circle.

"The prosecution's phone records evidence, if anything, proved the lack of substantial evidence tying Mr. Jackson to the alleged conspiracy," the motion said. "Debbie Rowe's testimony demonstrated that the people around Mr. Jackson were, if anything, conspiring against him."

During his testimony, the accuser told jurors how he met Mr. Jackson while being treated for cancer and thought Mr. Jackson was "the coolest guy in the world."

The boy recalled being whisked about in limousines and a private jet, being hosted by Mr. Jackson at a Florida resort and appearing in a rebuttal video with his family.

During cross-examination, the accuser became combative and admitted having been a troublemaker at school. He also said he protested leaving Neverland at the end because "I was having fun."

During her five days on the witness stand the accuser's mother admitted to lying under oath in an unrelated lawsuit and, extending her arms to the jury, implored jurors: "Please don't judge me!"

Sneddon won key rulings from the judge, including one that let him all but try a 1993 case that never made it to court because Mr. Jackson and the accuser reached a multimillion-dollar financial settlement.  

Under a California law specific to molestation cases that permits claims of past activities to show a pattern of behavior, the prosecution brought witnesses in to testify about claims against Mr. Jackson over 12 years ago. On cross-examination, however, Mr. Mesereau showed that most of these witnesses had been paid for their stories by tabloids or had lost a lawsuit to Mr. Jackson.

Superior Court Judge Rodney Melville said he would consider the defense's motion to dismiss all of the charges for lack of evidence on Thursday before jurors are called back to court. In most trials, the defense typically files a motion asking for an acquittal on grounds that prosecutors haven't proved their case. The motions are rarely granted.

If Melville denies the motion Mr. Jackson's lawyers will call their first witnesses in his defense, reportedly to include one or more of the young boys who prosecutors say he molested or treated inappropriately over the past decade.

Defense lawyers have vowed that some of the most famous people in America, including film legend Elizabeth Taylor and late-night talk-show host Jay Leno, will testify on Mr. Jackson's behalf.

Source: / AP / Reuters

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May 3, 2005

Day 44: Inflammatory Testimony from Prosecution's Accountant Falls Flat in

Cross-Examination


Created: Tuesday, 03 May 2005

Tuesday, May 3, 2005

On day 44 a forensic accountant for the prosecution testified in Michael Jackson's trial Tuesday that, in his opinion, Mr. Jackson was spending more than he earned. The testimony came as the prosecution neared the end of its case.

The detailed analysis of Mr. Jackson's multimillion-dollar empire was brought into the trial over vehement objections from defense lawyers who said it was irrelevant to the case and was based on hearsay statements contained in memos from various financial advisers.

Judge Rodney Melville instructed jurors they were not to consider the accounting figures "for the truth of the matter" but merely to show how the expert reached his conclusions.

Under questioning by deputy district attorney Gordon Auchincloss, forensic accountant John Duross O'Bryan traced Mr. Jackson's assets and liabilities from 1999 to 2004.

He said the balance sheet was prepared on a tax basis and assets listed might actually have higher values.

He said he formed his opinions by reading through boxes of memos exchanged by Mr. Jackson's financial managers over the years and he told of a warning to Mr. Jackson that if his overspending continued he might be forced to sell off his two greatest assets, the catalogue of his own songs and the Sony-ATV catalogue which contains rights to the works of numerous other artists including the Beatles.

The witness said even selling the catalogues would be problematic because that would incur a huge tax liability.

Defence lawyer Thomas Mesereau said the catalogue was worth $1 billion in 2003 and there have been estimates it's now worth between $4 billion and $5 billion.

Mr. Mesereau clashed with the accountant, suggesting in several questions he underestimated the value of Mr. Jackson's stake in the Sony-ATV catalogue and had not considered lucrative offers available to Mr. Jackson as an entertainer.

"Wouldn't it be relevant if you knew Mr. Jackson could accept one opportunity and solve (his liquidity problem) in a day," Mr. Mesereau asked.

Prosecutors are trying to show Mr. Jackson had banked on the documentary as a way to re-energize his career and it exploded in his face.

They said he then organized efforts at damage-control; they maintain he tried to do this by holding captive the family of the boy he allegedly molested and forcing them to participate in the so-called rebuttal video.

The accountant testified he was aware Mr. Jackson negotiated with the Fox network to get $7 million for the rebuttal video.

"Let's say he has the opportunity to make a documentary that will generate $7 million," Mr. Mesereau said.

"That $7 million is not going to make much of a difference" in Mr. Jackson's liabilities.

"No, it's not," the witness agreed.

"And it wouldn't be worth committing a crime, would it?" asked Mr. Mesereau.

The question was ruled argumentative and there was no answer.

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Before the financial testimony, District Attorney Tom Sneddon called sheriff's Sgt. Steve Robel to the stand to undermine Ms. Rowe in an attempt to impeach her testimony.

Mr. Jackson's ex-wife, the mother of two of his children, had unexpectedly praised Mr. Jackson as a good father and a generous and caring friend and denied prosecution contentions that her statements in another rebuttal video were scripted by the Mr. Jackson camp.

Earlier Tuesday, police Sergeant Steve Robel told jurors how Mr. Jackson's ex-wife, Debbie Ms. Rowe, had at one time described Mr. Jackson negatively.

Prosecutors called their last witness, Rudy Provencio, who worked with Mr. Jackson on a charity record. He spent about 20 minutes on the witness stand but court ended for the day before he could get to the heart of his testimony.

Prosecutors are expected to rest their case after Provencio completes his testimony.

Source: / AP

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May 2, 2005

Day 43: D.A. Tries to Substantiate Weak Case, Says Jackson's Associates Made Too Many Phone Calls


Created: Monday, 02 May 2005

Monday, May 2, 2005

On day 43 on Michael Jackson's trial, Prosecutors nearing the end of their case against Michael Jackson attempted to flesh out an alleged conspiracy.

Prosecutors introduced evidence intended to document activities and communications among associates who have been named as unindicted co-conspirators.

A bank manager testified that in April 2003, Marc Schaffel, who has been identified as an unindicted co-conspirator, cashed checks for $1 million and $500,000 on an account for which he and Mr. Jackson were the only signatories.

Schaffel's name has surfaced repeatedly in connection with efforts to contain damage from the documentary. But Schaffel has claimed that he had extensive financial dealings with Mr. Jackson and he maintains that he owes him more than $3 million in loans and producing fees.

During the weeks surrounding the broadcast of a damaging documentary about Michael Jackson, his associates apparently made dozens of phone calls to each other, prosecutors showed Monday in the trial. The phone records and unexplained testimony about one associate cashing two huge checks on an account shared with Mr. Jackson were offered as the prosecution neared the end of its case.

The jury was not told how the calls support the case. The evidence appeared aimed at an attempt to support the prosecution's faltering assertion that Mr. Jackson and his aides were so panicked by the documentary that they plotted to hold his accuser's family captive until they agreed to record a video rebuttal.

The phone records detailed a total of 38 calls between two of Mr. Jackson's aides on one day alone, February 12 -- the same day his accuser's mother claims she escaped from Mr. Jackson's Neverland Ranch.

None of the calls were traceable to Mr. Jackson.

Prosecutor Mag Nicola spent hours showing jurors charts of calls, primarily between the phones of three men named as unindicted co-conspirators, the mother of the boy who was allegedly molested, and an assortment of Mr. Jackson employees and lawyers.

The first series of calls occurred during a trip to Miami by Mr. Jackson, his entourage, the accuser and the boy's family. Prosecutors showed calls to and from the presidential suite at the Miami resort where Mr. Jackson stayed.

During cross-examination, defense attorney Robert Sanger asked sheriff's Detective Robert Bonner whether there was any way to determine if Mr. Jackson took part in the calls. Bonner said there was not.

Legal analysts said the prosecution was seeking to tie Mr. Jackson closer to his unindicted co-conspirators.

"But the fact there was a lot of activity does not in and of itself prove there was any conspiracy," said Jim Moret, a lawyer following the trial. "There are a lot of loose ends out there they need to tie together."

With prosecutors indicating that they intend to rest their case on Tuesday, court observers questioned why they would choose this moment to spend hours taking weary jurors through complex flow charts of telephone conversations.

"You want to end on a strong note. For the prosecution to end on phone records sounds very weak," Moret said.

Some members of the jury appeared to find the day tough going, and at one point one of the alternate jurors noticeably dozed off.

The prosecution's quest for a strong finish had already been hampered at the end of last week by the testimony of Mr. Jackson's ex-wife, Debbie Rowe.

Although Rowe had been touted as a star prosecution witness, the decision to call her backfired badly, as she sung Mr. Jackson's praises and firmly rejected suggestions that a video interview she gave extolling his parenting skills had been scripted.

The prosecution took another minor hit on Friday when Judge Rodney Melville barred testimony from a journalist who said he may have heard one of Mr. Jackson's aides talking about the accuser's family "escaping" from Neverland Ranch.

The judge deemed the witness's recollections too vague to be entered as evidence.

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Source: / AP / AFP

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April 29, 2005

Day 42: Prosecution Struggles to Create Evidence Against Mr. Jackson, Shows Jury Art Books From 1993


Created: Saturday, 30 April 2005

Friday, April 29, 2005

Day 42 featured two books, presented by the prosecution, that were seized from Michael Jackson's home over 12 years ago. The prosecution tried to convince jurors that these 2 collector's art books were of a sexual nature.

Prosecutors, still reeling from disastrous testimony by Mr. Jackson's ex-wife in the waning days of their case, entered the books as evidence in the face of strenuous defense objections.

Prosecutors showed the jury only the covers and front pages on which dedications were written, and put a detective on the witness stand to describe the contents.

Los Angeles police Detective Rosibel Smith, who found the books in a locked filing cabinet in Mr. Jackson's master bedroom, testified that both books featured boys "playing, swimming, jumping."

The books were seized during a molestation investigation involving a boy who received a settlement from Mr. Jackson in 1994. That probe never led to criminal charges against Mr. Jackson.

Jurors have heard testimony relating to long-ago allegations against Mr. Jackson under a California law that permits evidence that may tend to show a defendant's propensity toward child molestation.

Judge Rodney S. Melville allowed the prosecution to use the books despite defense objections.  Mr. Jackson's lawyers had sought to exclude the evidence, arguing that it was not relevant to the charges at the heart of the trial, they were found too long ago - over twelve years ago - and completely misrepresented the content of his extremely large library.

"This case really isn't about 1993," defense lawyer Robert Sanger said in arguments before jurors heard testimony related to the photo books.

Mr. Sanger argued that prosecutors, who plan to rest next week, were trying to shore up a losing case.

"Their current case is very weak. This is a further attempt to bolster that," Mr. Sanger said.

Mr. Jackson attorney Robert Sanger countered that the evidence was so out of date as to be "just plain stale," and argued it was irrelevant to the current case and would prejudice the jury.

After Judge Rodney Melville sided with the prosecution, the defense swiftly sought to lessen the potential impact with jurors.

Stressing that both books were commercially available, Mr. Sanger showed the court a projected blow-up of the dust jacket of one volume -- titled "Boys Will Be Boys!" -- with its image of four boys in swimsuits jumping into a lake.

This book was marked "very scarce" by a book dealer. In it, Mr. Jackson had inscribed a note: "Look at the true spirit of happiness and joy in these boys' faces. This is the spirit of boyhood, a life I never had and will always dream of. This is the life I want for my children."

The other book, from the 1960's, "The Boy: A Photographic Essay," also contained an inscription that said: "To Michael from your (heart symbol) fan, XXXOOO, 'Rhonda."' The note was dated 1983.

Prosecutor Ron Zonen said earlier that one book was about 90 percent pictures of partially nude boys and the other about 10 percent.

Prosecutors have previously introduced adult magazines featuring adult women as well as a few art books that featured nudes.

In a win for Mr. Jackson's lawyers, Melville also ruled on Friday that jurors would not hear testimony from a tabloid journalist who had arranged to interview the family of Mr. Jackson's accuser.

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Ian Drew, a reporter now with US Weekly, said he was told by one of Mr. Jackson's associates and an unindicted co-conspirator in the case that the interview would have to be scrapped because the accuser's family had fled Neverland.

"I was told they had disappeared, that they couldn't keep them there anymore," Drew said with jurors out of the courtroom. "To the best of my recollection, the word 'escape' was used."

Melville said that that testimony, which would have been complicated by state legal limits on the use of reporters as witnesses, did not link Mr. Jackson to the alleged conspiracy and was undercut by the questionable memory of the witness' and his "real vagueness with regard to the word 'escape."'

Prosecutors plan to rest their case early next week and are struggling to find a strong finish that might mitigate the effects of Thursday's testimony by Mr. Jackson's ex-wife, Debbie Rowe.

Touted as a star prosecution witness, Ms. Rowe instead came across as a potent character witness for the defense, as she lavished praise on Mr. Jackson as a "great father" and a generous man surrounded by "opportunistic vultures."

Called to testify about the circumstances surrounding a video interview she made extolling Mr. Jackson's parenting skills, Ms. Rowe, 46, completely rejected the prosecution's assertion that her words had been scripted.

Source: / AP / Reuters / AFP

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April 29, 2005

Day 41: Mr. Jackson's Ex-Wife Continues to Dismantle Prosecution's Claims


Created: Friday, 29 April 2005

Ms. Rowe on Mr. Jackson: "Generous to a fault, good father, great with kids, puts other people ahead of him. Brilliant businessman"



Thursday, April 28, 2005

On Day 41 the mother of two of Michael Jackson's children took the stand in his trial again Thursday and depicted the pop star as a victim of a cabal of "opportunistic vultures" in his inner circle who sought to make millions from his troubles and hurt him.

Deborah Rowe, completing testimony that turned the tables on the prosecutors who called her, said a group of men now named as unindicted co-conspirators with Mr. Jackson were actually conspiring against her ex-husband.

She said they recruited her to make a video praising Mr. Jackson, then sold it for millions and kept the money. She said the organizer of the video, Marc Schaffel, bragged to her about how much money he was making off Mr. Jackson.

"He (Marc Schaffel) was out to hurt Michael and in addition would hurt my children," Ms. Rowe said.

Ms. Rowe only spoke well of Mr. Jackson and reserved expressions of ill will for others around him.

Asked what she thought of Schaffel and two other unindicted alleged co-conspirators, Dieter Wiesner and Ronald Konitzer, Ms. Rowe said, "I think they're opportunistic vultures."

Ms. Rowe's second day of testimony came after Mr. Jackson's lawyers tried to abort her appearance with a motion to strike everything she said on Wednesday - a move they dropped after Thursday's questioning elicited more positive testimony about Mr. Jackson.

Their reason for the motion was not made public immediately but appeared to relate to the fact that she was offered by the prosecution as a witness on one specific fact - a claim that the co-conspirators scripted her videotaped interview just as they allegedly scripted one for the mother of Mr. Jackson's accuser to rebut the documentary.

As late as Monday, Deputy District Attorney Ron Zonen told the court Ms. Rowe would say she was scripted.

But when she took the stand Wednesday she said exactly the opposite and she continued to maintain on Thursday that there was no script, that the person who interviewed her on camera had a list of 105 questions in front of him but that she never looked at them because she wanted to be spontaneous.

Asked by Zonen if she knew what she was supposed to say on camera about Mr. Jackson, she used such terms as "a wonderful person," "a great father," and "generous and caring."

Asked how she felt about doing the video, she said, "I was excited to do it. I would get to see the children and could renew a relationship with Mr. Jackson."

Asked why she was interested in that, she said, "They're my family."

At the end of his direct examination, Zonen asked, "What was your motivation for participating in this interview?"

"To see my children," she said.

But under cross-examination by Mr. Mesereau she said she did not blame Mr. Jackson for keeping her away from the youngsters but felt that his advisers and lawyers had interceded.

Asked how she feels about Mr. Jackson now, she said, "I've always considered him my friend."

"And you still do?" asked Mr. Mesereau. Ms. Rowe said she did.

At that point she blamed all their problems on lawyers.

She reserved her most vitriolic statements for Schaffel, who she said bragged to her that he was being paid for the video and that he had many plans to make money off Mr. Jackson.

"He just bragged about how he had taken advantage of an opportunity," she said. "He said he was going to make sure Michael's career was saved."

At one point she used an expletive to describe Schaffel, then turned to the judge and apologized.

Ms. Rowe said she considered Schaffel, Konitzer and Wiesner to be liars.

She said Schaffel once set her up by inviting her to lunch at a Beverly Hills restaurant and informing tabloid photographers she would be there in order to have her photographed with him and Wiesner.

She said the incident happened the same day as a major meeting of Mr. Jackson power brokers at the Beverly Hills Hotel, a meeting to which Schaffel was not invited. She said it was his way of getting even.

Mr. Mesereau asked her to describe Mr. Jackson in her own words as she had described him in the video. She caught her breath and said: "Generous to a fault, good father, great with kids, puts other people ahead of him. Brilliant businessman."

She became tearful when she described her feelings about Mr. Jackson.

"There's different Michaels. There's like my Michael and the Michael that everyone else sees," she said.

Mr. Jackson dabbed at his eyes as she spoke.

"That would be Michael the entertainer?" Mr. Mesereau asked.

"Michael the entertainer, yeah," Ms. Rowe said.

Ms. Rowe looked across the courtroom several times at Mr. Jackson and once tried to engage him in conversation.

Asked when she had gone on tour with Mr. Jackson, she looked to the defendant and asked, "What was the tour after 'Bad?' Was it the 'HIStory' tour or 'Dangerous?' Oh, it was 'Dangerous.'"

Before Ms. Rowe left the stand the prosecutor asked if she believed Mr. Jackson was "amenable" to her seeing their children. When the defense objected, Zonen said the question was for the purpose of impeachment.

"I'm hoping in my heart that he is," Ms. Rowe answered, adding "I haven't spoken to him. I don't know."

Ms. Rowe and Mr. Jackson were married in 1996 and divorced after three years.

Mr. Jackson has a third child, Prince Michael II, whose mother has remained anonymous.

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Source: / AP

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April 27, 2005

Day 40: Michael Jackson's Ex-wife: "He's My Friend. No One Can Tell Me What To Say"


Created: Wednesday, 27 April 2005

Wednesday, April 27, 2005 On Day 40 of Michael Jackson's trial, Mr. Jackson's ex-wife, Deborah Rowe described him from the witness stand at his child molestation trial as "my friend" and said, contrary to the prosecution's claims, that she was never rehearsed to say positive things about him on a video interview made to rebut a damaging TV documentary.

"I didn't want anyone to be able to come back to me and say my interview was rehearsed," Rowe said. "As Mr. Jackson knows, no one can tell me what to say."

Rowe, who is in a family court dispute over visitation with their children, Prince Michael and Paris, glanced at Mr. Jackson as she spoke. Mr. Jackson, dressed in a maroon suit, showed no obvious reaction to her testimony.

Prosecutors called Rowe to support their conspiracy case against Mr. Jackson, who is accused of molesting a 13-year-old boy in February or March 2003. The case alleges Mr. Jackson conspired to hold the accuser's family captive to get them to rebut the TV documentary "Living With Michael Mr. Jackson" by British journalist Martin Bashir.

The accuser's mother has claimed that a rebuttal video she made, praising Mr. Jackson as a father figure, was scripted.

Rowe reiterated that she had been offered a list of questions by her interviewers but she declined to look at them before she talked.

"It was a cold interview and I wanted to keep it that way," she said.

Deputy District Attorney Ron Zonen asked her what she expected after she gave the interview.

Teary, she said, "To be reunited with the children and be reacquainted with their dad."

Asked why she wanted to see Mr. Jackson again, she said, "He's my friend."

Rowe appeared nervous at first as she told jurors "we've been friends and we were married."

"Are you the mother of his two elder children?" asked Zonen.

"Yes," she said, naming them.

Asked about her domestic arrangements, she said, "We never shared a home ... we never shared an apartment."

Rowe and Mr. Jackson married in November 1996. Prince Michael was born in February 1997, followed by Paris in April 1998. The couple filed for divorce in October 1999. Mr. Jackson has a third child, Prince Michael II, whose mother has remained anonymous.

Rowe said she knew Mr. Jackson for perhaps 20 years before they married and once they divorced she was allowed visitation with the children for eight hours every 45 days. She said it was a tough schedule to keep because Mr. Jackson travels so much with the children and she finally relinquished all parental rights.

"The visitations were not comfortable," she said, explaining that they would meet at a hotel and "it was a very sterile environment."

In 2003, she said, she received a call through her former employer, a doctor who brought Mr. Jackson and her together. She said he told her that someone associated with Mr. Jackson wanted to talk to her and arranged a phone call for her with Marc Schaffel, who is named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the case.

Mr. Jackson got on the phone briefly during that conversation, she said.

"He told me there was a video coming out and it was full of lies and would I help. I said, as always, yes. I asked him if he was OK. I was very upset," she testified.

Rowe said her conversation with Mr. Jackson lasted perhaps 2½ minutes and there was no discussion of what he wanted her to do other than to work with his associates.

She said all she could recall him saying was, "There was a bad video coming out."

"Did he tell you with any specificity what he wanted you to do?" asked Zonen.

"No," she said.

Her testimony did link Mr. Jackson to the making of the rebuttal video. But her account offered less evidence than the persecution seemed to expect to tie Mr. Jackson to a conspiracy. She said she was not pressured to say anything specific and that there was "no quid pro quo."

Asked why she would help Mr. Jackson, she said, "I promised him I would always be there for Michael and the children."

She did not give any details of her private life with Mr. Jackson and made it clear that she did not want to discuss it.

"My personal life was my personal life and no one's business," she said when asked by the prosecution if she had talked completely truthfully on the video that was made.

Rowe said that before the interview began at Schaffel's home, they talked briefly about her family and he reported on her children's progress.

She said Schaffel told her that "they were fine, that Michael was going to be OK, how big the children had gotten and how beautiful they were and how strongheaded Paris was, like me."

She said the videotaped interview lasted nine hours and that she recently saw a two-hour version of it which was shown to her by prosecutors.

She said she found it "very boring and dull" and didn't really pay attention while she was watching it.

"All I knew is whatever what is being put out about Michael was hurtful to Michael and the children," she said.

Rowe said she told Mr. Jackson's associates that before she could take part in the video she needed a release from a confidentiality agreement.

"The confidentiality agreement said I could not speak with the press, public, anyone, regarding Michael or the children or our lives together," she said.

In his opening statement on February 28, 2005, chief prosecutor Tom Sneddon told the jury, "Debbie Rowe will tell you her interview also was completely scripted. They scripted that interview just like they scripted the (accuser's mother's) interview."

But the prosecution's line of attack has faltered in the face of Rowe's reversed testimony - and she remained adamant that neither Mr. Jackson or his aides tried to coerce her into giving scripted answers.

Rowe was expected back on the stand Thursday for more questioning.

Earlier in the day, Mr. Jackson's attorneys asked for a mistrial but were turned down by Judge Rodney S. Melville during a controversy involving testimony about the television documentary.

Former Mr. Jackson videographer Hamid Moslehi testified that during taping of the documentary he used his own camera to record the scenes as a backup for Mr. Jackson. He said the ultimate documentary was edited in a way that "Mr. Jackson sounded different than if they had continued another two or three seconds of that statement."

Moslehi said the accuser, his brother and sister were at his house for two or three hours before the taping began and he did not see them rehearsing. He said that the mother was there for about an hour before the taping and that he did not see her reading, rehearsing or being coached.

He also said that the mother confided in him at times but that she never told him that she was being falsely imprisoned, that she was receiving death threats, that Mr. Jackson had given her children alcohol or that the singer improperly touched her son. He said she also never asked him to call police.

The judge had earlier barred the defense from showing sections of Moslehi's tape, so he ordered prosecutor Gordon Auchincloss to cease questioning Moslehi about his tape. But the prosecutor again ventured into that area, drawing another warning.

The defense finally made a motion for a mistrial, but the judge said he believed he had taken care of the problem by raising his own objection to the testimony.

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Source: / AP

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April 26, 2005

Day 39: Family's Tickets to Brazil Never Purchased, Videographer Gives Accuser's Mother Money


Created: Tuesday, 26 April 2005

Tuesday, April 26, 2005 On day 39 a travel agent testifying under immunity in Michael Jackson's trial said Tuesday she booked a flight to Brazil for the family of the accuser at the request of one of his business associates.

Cynthia Montgomery testified that she arranged a $15,000 flight to Sao Paulo at the request of Marc Schaffel, who is named by prosecutors as one of the unindicted co-conspirators in the Jackson case.

Prosecutors contend Mr. Jackson's associates planned to keep the family in Brazil indefinitely in the aftermath of the Feb. 6, 2003, airing of the TV documentary "Living With Michael Mr. Jackson."

Montgomery was granted immunity because the FBI is investigating her in relation to the secret videotaping of Mr. Jackson and former attorney Mark Geragos during a charter jet flight she booked. The charter flight brought Mr. Jackson from Las Vegas to Santa Barbara where he surrendered to authorities.

Montgomery said she booked, but did NOT purchase tickets for the accuser's family on a flight scheduled to depart for Brazil on March 1, 2003. Montgomery told jurors the plane tickets were never purchased because Shaffel later informed her he "had a change of plans."  She also said she never spoke to Mr. Jackson, or the accuser's family about the trip.

She said Schaffel asked her to book a one-way trip but she had to arrange a round-trip flight because Americans are not allowed to enter Brazil with one-way tickets. She said she arbitrarily chose a return date.

The family never made the flight and prosecutors did not discuss the reason why in court.

(Excerpt from Court Transcript)

MR. MESEREAU: You and Mr. Schaffel discussed a round trip to Brazil involving the Arvizos, correct?

MS. MONTGOMERY: Yes.

MR. MESEREAU: And you put together an itinerary for that round trip, right?

MS. MONTGOMERY: I made a reservation for that trip.

MR. MESEREAU: And in the course of making the reservation, you actually had an itinerary with dates, correct?

 MS. MONTGOMERY: Yes.

MR. MESEREAU: There was a departure date, true? And there was a return date, right?

MS. MONTGOMERY: True.

MR. MESEREAU: The trip you were arranging was for how many people?

MS. MONTGOMERY: Four.

MR. MESEREAU: You separately had arranged a Brazil trip for Mr. Schaffel, correct?

MS. MONTGOMERY: Yes.

MR. MESEREAU: You arranged a separate trip for Mr. Schaffel around the time that you and he discussed arranging a trip for the Arvizos, correct?

MS. MONTGOMERY: Yes.

MR. MESEREAU: And when you used to get tickets for Mr. Schaffel, how would you typically arrange to pay for those tickets?

MS. MONTGOMERY: He would send me a check or put it on his credit card.

MR. MESEREAU: Did he ever send you a check involving a trip for the Arvizos?

MS. MONTGOMERY: I couldn't tell you for sure. I'd have to look at documents.

MR. MESEREAU: To your knowledge, was there ever a charge made on any credit card for a trip to Brazil involving the Arvizos?

MS. MONTGOMERY: Not to my knowledge.

MR. MESEREAU: Okay.

MS. MONTGOMERY: No.

MR. MESEREAU: And at no time did you ever arrange any trip to Brazil for Mr. Jackson, right?

MS. MONTGOMERY: That's right.

MR. MESEREAU: And at no time did you ever speak to Mr. Jackson on the phone about any trip to Brazil, right?

MS. MONTGOMERY: I've never spoken to Mr. Jackson on the telephone.

MR. MESEREAU: And you've never spoken to him in person about any trip to Brazil at any time?

MS. MONTGOMERY: That's correct.

MR. MESEREAU: I have no further questions

(End of Excerpt)

On cross-examination, defense attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr. immediately noted that Montgomery was testifying under immunity granted by Superior Court Judge Rodney S. Melville.

Mr. Jackson's lead lawyer launched a blistering attack on Montgomery's credibility, laying bare a bitter legal battle that she is fighting against Mr. Jackson.

He revealed that Montgomery had received legal immunity for her testimony as she is involved in a Federal Bureau of Investigation probe over the illegal video bugging of Mr. Jackson's chartered private jet.

Mr. Mesereau suggested that Montgomery's request for immunity "grew out of concerns of a possible prosecution over the secret taping of Michael Mr. Jackson on that private flight" that brought Mr. Jackson to California for his high-profile arrest on November 20, 2003.

Mr. Jackson has sued the travel agent for invasion of privacy on the flight from Las Vegas, while Montgomery last year countersued the star for 50,000 dollars in unpaid bills from the flight.

Legal analysts said Montgomery scored some points for the prosecution, but warned that her credibility may have been damaged.

"The jury's got to think was she behind the videotaping" said former prosecutor Craig Smith said. "Does she have an axe to grind?"

As prosecutors wind up their nine-week case against Mr. Jackson, Mr. Jackson's former personal videographer Hamid Moslehi took the stand to tell how he made videos after the broadcast of the TV documentary on February 6, 2003.

Moslehi said he filmed the accuser and the boy's family praising Mr. Jackson as a father figure on February 20, 2003 and an interview with Mr. Jackson's ex-wife Debbie Rowe, who is expected to testify later this week, on February 5.

But in lengthy questioning Tuesday, Moslehi failed to directly support prosecutor's claims that both Rowe and the family were coerced into making what they have tried to claim were carefully-scripted films.

While Moslehi was not directly asked whether the videos were scripted, he said the demeanor of the alleged victim's mother appeared normal during filming, although she was upset about having to sign a standard release form.

Adding to the string of cash 'donations' she received, the accuser's mother took $2,000 from Moslehi and never repaid this loan either.

(Excerpt from Court Transcript)

MR. MESEREAU: You got the impression that Janet and her family could use some financial help. That's why you made a loan, right?

MR. MESEREAU: Okay.  You based your conclusion that Janet needed financial help on what she had said to you from time to time, right?

MR. MOSLEHI: Could you repeat that one more time?

MR. MESEREAU: Sure. Let me restate it completely. You didn't just give her $2,000 for no reason, right?

MR. MOSLEHI: That's correct.

MR. MESEREAU: You thought she could use it, right?

MR. MOSLEHI: That's correct.

MR. MESEREAU: You thought she needed it based on things she had told you about she and her family, right?

MR. MOSLEHI: Sure.

MR. MESEREAU: She didn't directly ask for it at any time, right?

MR. MOSLEHI: No, she never asked for it.

MR. MESEREAU: But she led you to believe that their lives had been turned upside down and she needed some financial help, right?

MR. AUCHINCLOSS: Objection. Compound;misstates the evidence; asked and answered.

THE COURT: Overruled. You may answer.

THE WITNESS: Could you repeat that one more time? I'm sorry.

MR. MESEREAU: Yes, okay. At some point -- let me restate the question. I'll withdraw the previous question.

MR. MOSLEHI: Okay.

MR. MESEREAU: At some point after numerous discussions with Ms. Arvizo, you formed the conclusion that she and her family could use some financial help from you, right?

MR. MOSLEHI: After one conversation with her that night, February 19th, on the phone, I felt that they could use some financial assistance.

MR. MESEREAU: Okay. And because you had reached that conclusion, you gave her $2,000, correct?

MR. MOSLEHI: That's correct.

MR. MESEREAU: You called it a loan, but you didn't expect to be repaid, correct?

MR. MOSLEHI: Well, actually, I've been expecting to be paid. But if not, I can live without it.

MR. MESEREAU: Okay. I mean, realistically when you gave it to her, did you expect her to repay it?

MR. MOSLEHI: I did.

MR. MESEREAU: Did you --

MR. MOSLEHI: I mentioned, "This is not a gift. It's a loan. It's from me."

MR. MESEREAU: Okay.

MR. MOSLEHI: "And pay me whenever."

MR. MESEREAU: Okay. And has she ever repaid it?

MR. MOSLEHI: No.

MR. MESEREAU: Okay. Now, is the conversation where you spoke to her and then concluded she could use some financial help the 25-minute conversation?

MR. MOSLEHI: Approximately.

MR. MESEREAU: Okay. And to your knowledge, where was Janet Arvizo when you had this approximately 25-minute conversation?

MR. MOSLEHI: At what location she was, you mean?

MR. MESEREAU: Yes. If you know.

MR. MOSLEHI: I don't remember.

MR. MESEREAU: And did she call you?

MR. MOSLEHI: No.

MR. MESEREAU: Did you call her?

MR. MOSLEHI: No.

MR. MESEREAU: Where were you when you had the 25-minute conversation?

MR. MOSLEHI: At Neverland.

MR. MESEREAU: Okay. And do you know approximately what date that conversation took place?

MR. MOSLEHI: I believe it was February 19, 2003.

MR. MESEREAU: Okay. So the impression you got that Janet could use a little help was formed before the rebuttal video was filmed at your home, true?

MR. MOSLEHI: That's true.

MR. MESEREAU: The rebuttal video was filmed at your home the next day, right?

MR. MOSLEHI: Well, the morning after.

(End of Excerpt)

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Source: / AP

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April 26, 2005

Day 38: Defense Says Prosecution Allowed to Call Debbie Rowe, in End of Case "Desperate Tactic"


Created: Tuesday, 26 April 2005

Monday, April 25, 2005 On Day 38 the judge overruled defense objections in Michael Jackson's trial Monday, saying he will allow Mr. Jackson's ex-wife Debbie Rowe to testify as a prosecution witness.

Prosecutors want Rowe, the mother of two of his three children, to tell jurors that she was compelled to appear on a videotape praising Mr. Jackson as a good father and a humanitarian. Defense attorney, Mr. Sanger stated that  there was no script for the video, just questions that were written out.

The defense objected on grounds that the testimony was part of a prosecution "desperation" tactic at the end of its case and had no relevance to the charges against Mr. Jackson. 


(Excerpt from Court Transcript)



MR. SANGER:  This, once again, is reaching.

First of all, Debbie Rowe gave up her parental rights, which is a totally different situation than we have here.  There's an ongoing family law matter that persists, even as we speak today, in Los Angeles over this, over the relationship and attempt to get some -- possibly some visitation or some other benefit from that. However, we keep hearing "scripted performances," and there are no scripts. 

The only thing that has ever come up in this case, and will be clearly shown, if it isn't already, by the time we get through, is that there were questions that were written out in advance.  And anybody that does any kind of an interview for television is going to script out questions in advance, just as lawyers script out questions or question areas before they get up and ask witnesses on the stand, so interviewers script out their questions. 

There's nothing untoward about that. There was no scripted response to anything, despite Janet Arvizo's common sense that there was no script of answers. So it doesn't show a darned thing in that regard. And as we pointed out, and the Court's already commented, the Maury Povich show is not in evidence.  I don't think there's any way we can get it into evidence.  We don't intend to offer it.  And as a result, unless Debbie Rowe testifies, of course, so how is her performance on that tape relevant, as much as the prosecution would like to make it relevant. 

And I'm hearing they'd like to play parts of her tape, which just creates, under 352, if we even get to that point, if there is any probative value to this, it's far exceeded by the consumption of time, the confusion of the jury and the prejudicial effect.  Because if they bring that in and they play even part of the Debbie Rowe tape, we'll play the three hours. 

There's no question that Debbie Rowe was spontaneous in her remarks, and it goes on and on.  I think the Court saw the Maury Povich part of it, where she even answers at one point, "Look," and she uses some term that would not ordinarily be appropriate on television, kind of laughs about it, and says, "I just want to get to the point. 

Here's what it's all about."  That is her demeanor on the rest of that tape.  She is giving an interview based on how she felt at the time. However, if the Court allows the prosecution to get into this, besides playing the three-hour tape or a large portion of it - not as a threat, but because it will show the context of her answering questions in a very spontaneous fashion - we will have to get into this whole business with Ian Drew, and his fight with Marc Schaffel, and Marc Schaffel's fight with Ian Drew, and all these -- the -- all that surrounded this. Debbie Rowe's on tape.  In fact -- and she surreptitiously tape-recorded conversations that she had with Ian Drew that go on for hours where she is not upset at Michael Jackson, doesn't say anything bad about Michael Jackson as far as this -- the case is concerned.  She says a few callous things, I might point out.  But other than that, her focus is she doesn't like Marc Schaffel.  And so she's fighting with -- or working with Ian Drew to fight about Marc Schaffel.  All of this will come out to show -- it will have to come out because it shows the context in which she would be testifying here. She has been extremely upset with Marc Schaffel for some other reason and has had an agenda that's clear on all of her taped remarks, including the ones she taped of herself talking. 

It's very clear that she has some agenda with regard to Marc Schaffel that has nothing whatsoever to do with Michael Jackson. She regards him as just being pretty much a victim in Marc Schaffel's machinations. So if she's going to testify, we're going to have to bring that out.  Again, it's not a threat. But I want the Court to understand the context. There really is a tremendous amount of material, tape-recorded material, by Debbie Rowe and by others in the group that the prosecution is trying to present here which indicate that there are - there are many other agendas on this case. I don't know if you get to 352 because I just plain don't see the relevance, forgetting about the giant can of worms that it would open.  I just don't see the relevance to these proceedings. So I'd submit it, Your Honor.



(End of Excerpt)

"I will admit testimony in that case" from Rowe, Judge Rodney Melville said, adding that he would seek ways to limit the scope of her evidence after defense attorneys warned that it would open "a giant can of worms." In addition, the defense said that if Rowe testified they would seek to present the entire three hours of her video interview with Mr. Jackson's associates as well as a tape recording she made secretly.

"She didn't say anything bad about Michael Jackson," said defense attorney Robert Sanger.

Mr. Sanger denied there were any threats to her during what he called "a tremendous amount of taped material."

"I just plain don't see the relevance to these proceedings," he said, noting that she had quarrels with Mr. Jackson aide Marc Schaffel, not with Mr. Jackson, and that her testimony would be a way to push her own agenda regarding Schaffel.

Superior Court Judge Rodney S. Melville said, "I will admit the testimony and will look to ways to restrict that testimony."

The defense noted that Rowe had voluntarily given up her parental rights to the children. Zonen said those rights had been recently restored and that she has a case under way in family court regarding visitation.

Rowe was a nurse for one of Mr. Jackson's dermatologists when they married in November 1996. Their son was born in February 1997, followed by their daughter in April 1998. The couple filed for divorce in October 1999. Mr. Jackson has a third child, Prince Michael II, whose mother has remained anonymous.

One of Mr. Jackson's attorneys, Brian Oxman, left the team Monday. Lead attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr. announced the departure in a statement that gave no explanation. Mr. Mesereau and Mr. Oxman were seen talking and then giving each other a hug after court recessed for the day. Mr. Oxman did not return a call for comment.

In other developments, District Attorney Tom Sneddon unexpectedly announced without explanation that planned witness Christopher Carter, a former Jackson security guard, will not be testifying.

Carter was recently arrested in Las Vegas and is facing bank robbery, kidnapping and other charges and had indicated he would invoke the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination if asked about his criminal case.

He was the only witness that the prosecution had hoped would corroborate claims by the accuser and his family that Mr. Jackson gave alcohol to children and specifically to the accuser.

In another key ruling, the judge decided to grant "use immunity" to a travel agent who also is invoking Fifth Amendment protection and is under investigation by federal authorities looking into the alleged illegal and secret videotaping of private conversations between Mr. Jackson and his attorney on a charter jet flight.

The form of immunity granted to Cynthia Montgomery means her testimony in the Jackson case cannot be used against her in any other proceeding. She had told the court last week she would refuse to testify about anything involving the charter jet flight.

The jury, which was out of the courtroom most of the morning, returned to hear testimony by former Jackson employee, Kassim Abdool.

Abdool said he saw Mr. Jackson and the boy, who later received a multimillion-dollar settlement, leave a Jacuzzi with Mr. Jackson. Mr. Jackson, wearing a towel, gave a piggyback ride to the boy, who wore a bathrobe.

Abdool was one of a group of former employees who lost a wrongful termination suit against Mr. Jackson in 1997 and were ordered to pay damages to the entertainer.

Under defense questioning, Abdool said he participated in an interview for a tabloid for which they received $15,000 and that he spent the money to fund the lawsuit.

The prosecution spent the balance of the day calling witnesses to authenticate documents.

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Source: / AP

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April 22, 2005

Day 37: "The (mother) perjured herself on the stand. because she lies for gain"

Created: Friday, 22 April 2005

On Day 37 the defense in the Michael Jackson trial on Thursday walked a former Neverland ranch security guard through records detailing activities at Mr. Jackson's estate during the time the accuser and his family were allegedly held captive there.

The logs showed, among other things, that on Feb. 20, 2003, the boy now accusing Mr. Jackson of molestation was hit by a golf cart driven by a relative of actor Marlon Brando.

An emergency medical worker examined the boy and he did not require any further attention, according to the log reviewed by former guard Brian Barron during cross-examination by defense attorney Robert Sanger.

An entry from Feb. 24, 2003, showed the entire family left and returned a few hours later. Mr. Sanger asked if the family had gone to the dentist that day and Barron said he did not know.

The boy's mother has testified that she took the family for an unnecessary trip to an orthodontist because she hoped to somehow escape.

Mr. Jackson was greeted by screaming fans on his arrival at court Thursday. Wearing a black coat with a bright aqua armband and vest, he acknowledged the screams with a wave.

The prosecution called Barron on Wednesday to testify that he once had orders not to let the accuser leave Neverland.

Barron, a police officer who moonlighted at Neverland, said that in January or February 2003 he saw a note written on a message board that "simply stated (the boy) is not allowed off-property."

He said he needed to get permission from a supervisor before letting the boy leave.

While the prosecution sought to show that the directive indicated they boy and his family were held against their will, Mr. Sanger challenged that implication when he began questioning Barron.

Mr. Sanger asked whether the general policy was that children visiting without parents would not be allowed to leave by themselves.

"Yes," said Barron. "We would not let them go off the ranch without supervision."

"So it would not be unusual to not let (the boy and his brother) leave the ranch without supervision," said Mr. Sanger.  

"That's correct," said Barron.

There were many occasions where the boy and his brother were at the ranch without parental supervision, therefore their whereabouts and safety would have been the responsibility of Mr. Jackson and his staff.

The defense then questioned Barron about the visitor logs and it became clear that the ranch's timeline of arrivals and departures for the accuser and his family was different than those described by the mother and other prosecution witnesses.

The mother and others have said the family flew to Florida to be with Mr. Jackson just before the TV documentary about Mr. Jackson was broadcast on Feb. 6, 2003. The mother said Mr. Jackson did not allow them to view the program there.

But the gate records of Neverland showed the family present at the estate on Feb. 6 and Feb. 7, 2003.

Barron wasn't asked if the dates were accurate, but it was clear the records weren't always perfect. The name of the boy's sister, for example, was repeatedly misspelled.

The witness, a police officer for the city of Guadalupe, said that he quit his job at Neverland after the estate was raided by Santa Barbara County sheriff's deputies in November 2003. He said a supervisor at his police job suggested he give up the part-time job because of the criminal investigation and he took the advice.

"You did not do that because you'd seen anything unlawful at the ranch?" asked Mr. Sanger.

"No," said the witness, who acknowledged that if he had seen anything amiss he would have been obligated as a police officer to report it.

The witness also said that after the raid - for which he was not present - the Sheriff's Department asked him to go back to work at Neverland as an informant but that he refused.

The court also heard that the young accuser, who the defense says ran amok at Neverland, crashed a golf cart into the fountain of the ranch's movie theater.

Security records from June 2002, months before the alleged crimes, showed that the accuser and his siblings had the run of the estate's lavish facilities, including its pool, spa, water fort, dance studio, all-terrain vehicles, scooters, jet skis, golf carts, horseback riding grounds and two houses on the property.

The mother of the accuser lived in quarters fit for Elizabeth Taylor during her alleged captivity at Neverland Ranch, a defense lawyer said.

The accuser's mother, who claimed she was held prisoner at the fantasy-style estate by Mr. Jackson and his alleged henchmen for three weeks in 2003, was supposedly housed in the same guest house where movie legend Taylor had stayed.

"Is guest unit number four a unit that Elizabeth Taylor likes to stay in?" defense attorney Robert Sanger asked former Neverland security guard Brian Barron as the two reviewed ranch records showing the woman had stayed in that room.

"I have no idea," the witness said, before agreeing that it was a very comfortable unit and that ranch guests enjoyed hotel-like services.

Meanwhile, Mr. Jackson's attorneys asked that prosecutors be barred from presenting decade-old allegations from a former Jackson employee regarding an alleged incident involving a young boy who later received a multimillion-dollar settlement from the singer.

The motion was one of several Judge Rodney S. Melville was expected to hear Thursday.

Abdool was one of several employees who lost a wrongful termination lawsuit to Mr. Jackson in 1997 and were ordered to pay damages to the singer in a countersuit. The defense said his testimony would be "precisely the kind of inflammatory evidence that is more prejudicial than probative," and asked that it not be allowed.

The boy named in the incident received a multimillion-dollar settlement from Mr. Jackson in 1994 and subsequently declined to cooperate in a criminal investigation. No charges were filed in that case.

Additionally, prosecutors clashed with Michael Jackson's lawyers over whether the mother of the star's child sex accuser was a vulnerable battered woman or a professional liar.

But trial Judge Rodney Melville ruled against prosecutors by refusing to allow them to call a domestic abuse expert to explain away key discrepancies in the woman's explosive testimony, which ended this week.

Mr. Jackson's lawyers also claimed the woman, who they say is a "professional plaintiff" and gold-digger, lived in quarters fit for screen legend Elizabeth Taylor during her alleged captivity at the star's Neverland Ranch.

Prosecutors had asked to call a specialist in the effects of spousal abuse to explain to jurors why the teen-age accuser's mother never called police during the three weeks during which she claims she and her family were kidnapped by the star and his aides.

They said the expert testimony would also help explain why the woman lied under oath, by her own admission, about details of her relationship with her ex-husband, whom she now claims beat her.

The boy's mother told jurors during five days on the stand she had not called friends in the police department or shouted out to nearby officers for help when she was allegedly escorted through public places by Mr. Jackson aides during her claimed three weeks in captivity.

In often garbled testimony that challenged her credibility, she said she had feared Mr. Jackson henchmen were monitoring her phone calls and warned her boyfriend and parents would be killed if she did not cooperate.

Auchincloss said because the woman had suffered abuse at the hands of her ex-husband, Mr. Jackson was able to take advantage of her.

"Mr. Jackson was in a position where he could exploit the vulnerabilities of a woman who suffered post-traumatic stress disorder," the prosecutor said in arguments held away from jurors.

But Mr. Jackson lawyer Robert Sanger countered that an expert should not be allowed to explain away inconsistencies in the woman's actions and statements as that would give witnesses free rein to lie.

The woman had perjured herself on the stand, Mr. Sanger alleged. "That's not because she's a battered women, that's because she lies for gain," he said.

Melville ruled against prosecutors on the motion.

"I think this type of evidence is valuable in domestic abuse cases, but I'm not going to allow it in this case," he said. "It may or may not explain her" behavior in this or earlier cases, he added.

Judge Rodney Melville also said he would allow evidence showing that Mr. Jackson's then-13-year-old accuser and younger brother had masturbated while looking at the pop star's pornography, potentially bolstering defense claims that the boys had run wild at Neverland.

Both rulings were setbacks for the prosecution, which is in the final stages of presenting its case to the jury of eight women and four men.



Creat.

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Source: / AP / AFP

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April 21, 2005

Day 36: Security Guard Testifies About Ranch Policy To Protect Unsupervised Children

Created: Thursday, 21 April 2005
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Wednesday, April 20, 2005
Creat..

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On Day 36 a former Neverland Ranch security officer told Michael Jackson's trial it was Neverland policy not to allow children to leave the rural property nestled among the hills of central California unsupervised. While Barron's initial testimony looked good for the prosecution--and bad for the defense--Mr. Sanger turned things around. With Mr. Sanger leading the way, the ex-guard agreed that it was ranch policy to restrict the comings and goings of all unsupervised children.

"If children are staying at the ranch and there is not a parent present, would it be the policy of the ranch to not let the children off the property?" asked defense attorney Robert Mr. Sanger.

"Yes," Barron replied. "That was the ranch policy."

Barron said he saw the words "(The boy) is not allowed off property" written on a white-board in a guard house.

The instruction remained on the board for about a week in January or February 2003, according to the witness, who said he worked on and off at Neverland for five years starting in 1997.  In cross-examination, the defense portrayed the notice as part of the ranch's policy to protect young children when parents were not available.

Defense Attorney Robert Mr. Sanger asked Barron if he was aware that no other Neverland security guard recalled having seen the instruction, but the witness insisted that other guards had seen it.

The defense also showed jurors a February 19, 2003, entry in Neverland's gate log that read: "The kids are not to leave per Joe," an apparent reference to a former ranch manager. "The kids meaning (the boy and his brother), etc."

The witness conceded that.

In a lengthy review of the Neverland guest logs with Barron, Mr. Jackson's defense pointed out that the family's claimed "escapes" from their alleged captivity at Neverland were duly recorded by security guards.

"There was no secret spiriting away. This was checking people out at the gate," Mr. Sanger said. "This was done according to procedure, right?" he asked Barron.

An accident log showed the boy, now 15, once crashed "the Batman cart" into "the theater fountain" at Neverland, in a minor boost to the defense's depiction of the alleged victim as a disruptive brat.

Later, Mr. Sanger walked Barron through visitor logs, including the one for Feb. 13, 2003--the night the mother said ranch hand Jesus Salas helped her and her children escape from the Santa Barbara County, California, estate.

The getaway was duly and dryly noted in the log as the mother and children leaving with Salas in the resident Rolls-Royce.

"There was no secret spiriting of people away. This was checking right out at the gate?" Mr. Sanger asked.

Mr. Sanger used the gate log to show that the accuser's family was able to move in and out of Neverland during the period that the prosecution maintains the family was prohibited from leaving.

Barron helped out on the employer-profile front. He said workers became "tense" when "perfectionist" Mr. Jackson was around.

"Everybody just seemed to be walking on pins and needles a little bit more just to make sure things were right," Barron said. The ex-guard later said he did mean that Mr. Jackson was an ogre.
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Barron was only partially helpful to the prosecution in establishing how much contact Mr. Jackson had with his alleged coconspirators. He said he frequently saw the pop star with Frank Tyson but only infrequently with the others, including the two men referred to by the accuser's mother as "the Germans."

A longtime police officer for Guadalupe, California, a town about 35 miles northwest of Neverland, Barron moonlighted off-and-on as a ranch security guard from 1997-2004. He left the Mr. Jackson job shortly after the molestation probe broke in November 2003. He said he didn't feel right being a sworn officer at what had become a crime scene.

Barron testified that the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department tried to persuade him to return to Neverland and act as an informant. He refused.

The ex-guard said he never saw any criminal activity at Neverland. About the only dirt Barron had to dish was on the accuser. He said the boy once crashed a golf cart due to reckless driving.

Jurors heard only a half day of testimony today as court ended at 11:30. The rest of the day was used to hear motions. One motion is a prosecution request to have testimony from an expert on battered women, possibly to explain the apparent lack of action by the accuser's mother during her family's alleged false imprisonment.

Another prosecution motion objects to the defense plan to have two-dozen Mr. Jackson employees say he always behaved properly with children.

The trial will resume for a full day tomorrow, Thursday, which will also be the last day of testimony for the week.

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Source: /AFP / E! / AP

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April 19 , 2005

Day 35: Accuser's Mother Says Prosecution 'Refreshed' Her Memory


Created: Tuesday, 19 April 2005

Day 35:

Tuesday, April 19, 2005

On Day 35 Michael Jackson's defense attorney, Tuesday, challenged the authenticity of photographs that appeared to show the mother of the his accuser with severe bruises from an alleged beating by store security guards that led to her family receiving more than $150,000 in a lawsuit settlement.

The incident occurred in 1998 and is unrelated to the molestation case facing Mr. Jackson but has arisen as a test of the mother's credibility. Mr. Jackson's defense claims his accuser's family has a history of false claims.

Defense attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr. attacked the photos, introduced by the prosecution late Monday, by eliciting the woman's acknowledgment that in a deposition for the lawsuit she talked about the fact that bruises do not show up immediately but turn dark over time.

When Mr. Mesereau asked her when the purported injury photos were taken, she said they were done immediately. She said her then-husband took her to have pictures made to document her injuries.

"But didn't you testify that you didn't have these bruises immediately?" asked Mr. Mesereau.

She fumbled for words and responded with the statement: "When the defense attorney told us. that's the time." The woman said she had been doing everything at the instruction of a defense attorney after she was arrested for investigation of assault and battery, burglary and petty theft - charges that were eventually dropped.

Mr. Mesereau asked if she had not told a woman at a law office that the bruises that were photographed were actually from a beating by her former husband.

"That's incorrect," she said.

The woman acknowledged that although she claimed to have been brutally beaten and sexually touched during the altercation with the store guards, she did not decide to file a lawsuit until a year later.  Mr. Mesereau then suggested that was the pattern she was following in the Mr. Jackson case.

Mr. Mesereau had previously confronted the woman with her statements from the store lawsuit in which she denied that her former husband ever abused her. She acknowledged those sworn statements were lies and that her former husband had frequently beaten her and her children.

Mesereau also asked the mother about her family's encounters with other celebrities. She said she was never informed that fund-raisers were held for her son at a Hollywood comedy club. And she said that she had no idea why money was being put in a bank account she opened for her son's benefit.

"You had no idea why anyone put money in it. You just withdrew it?" asked Mesereau.

"I did what (my husband) told me," the woman said.

Contrary to previous testimony and evidence, the woman also maintained that she never asked comedian George Lopez for money, nor did she approach Jay Leno.

Under repeated attack by Mr. Mesereau, the mother repeatedly avoided direct responses to his questions. When asked, for instance, if she kept papers on an SUV that Mr. Jackson gave to her family, the woman said no. And in the next breath, she said she had the vehicle identification number.

One subject the woman sidestepped entirely. When asked why she never told the lawyer who represented her in early 2003 that she was being held prisoner by Mr. Jackson and his team of henchman, the mother said she didn't want to answer on the grounds of what she called "attorney-client privilege."

Earlier, the woman invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in order to short-circuit questions about her acts of welfare fraud.

Additonally, Mr. Mesereau grilled the mother on money, head-licking--and a family snapshot in which she appeared to be holding a knife over the head of one of her children.

The woman said the knife picture, taken by her then-husband in the family kitchen, was done "jokingly."

On the subject of money, meanwhile, the woman claimed to have little knowledge of her family's finances. She said she didn't know about comedy-club fund-raisers for her ill son. And she said she didn't know about $2,000 wired to her bank account by Chris Tucker. (Tucker, who befriended the woman's eldest son during his cancer treatment, is on the defense's witness list.)

When asked why, if she was clueless of the comedy-club fund-raisers, she told a newspaper in 2000 that celebrities were helping her family, the mother said she meant that they were helping her family by visiting her son's hospital room and feeding the boy cantaloupe.

Trying to bolster the defense's contention that the accuser's mother used her son's bout with cancer to solicit money for her personal benefit, Mr. Mesereau asked her if she had paid for plastic surgery out of money raised for the boy.

"I used a credit card (for the surgery) ... which is still outstanding," she said.

She also said she never had a discussion with comedian Louise Palanker about $20,000 she had given the family, which she said was arranged by her then husband. But she admitted that at his request, she endorsed one of Palanker's checks.

On the stand Monday, the mother had said she did not know how the money from Palanker had been used. But Tuesday, after an overnight conversation with prosecutor Ron Zonen, she said she remembered that the money was used to construct a special sterile room at her parents' home, where her son stayed while recovering from chemotherapy. Prosecution attorney Zonen "refreshed my memory," she said.

The mother, who was on the stand over a period of five days, finally concluded her testimony at midmorning. After brief testimony by a detective, the accuser's grandmother was called to testify.

The grandmother testified on Tuesday that she was bombarded by phone calls and had rocks thrown at her home after her grandson finally left the singer's Neverland Valley Ranch in 2003.

Speaking in Spanish through an interpreter, the grandmother also said she had to pretend to be sick in order to get the boy, then 13, and his brother released from Neverland.

And when the brothers finally returned "these children that came were not my grandkids ... They didn't talk to me the same way. They were different kids and even up to now (the elder boy) is not the same child," she said.

The grandmother took the stand after the mother of the boy at the center of the child sex abuse case against Mr. Jackson stepped down on Tuesday after more than four days of emotional, bizarre and rambling testimony.

The mother never witnessed any molestation of her son by Mr. Jackson. She is crucial to the defense argument that Mr. Jackson was an unwitting victim of a liar and a grifter who latched onto celebrities and who had a history of making false allegations.

The grandmother's testimony focused on the days and weeks after the family returned from Neverland in March 2003 following what the mother had described as a period of intimidation at the hands of some of Mr. Jackson's aides.

"I had to lie and say I was ill so they could come, because those children, they loved me very much because I raised them," the grandmother said.  This is the same grandmother that the accuser testified told him that if he didn't masturbate he would be compelled to do something worse such as rape a girl.

The prosecution plans to rest next week, District Attorney Tom Sneddon told the judge Tuesday. The announcement came in the eighth week since opening statements.




 
Source: / AP / Reuters / CNN

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April 19 , 2005

Day 34: Bizarre Testimony Continues -Accuser's Mother Tells Story of Possible Hot Air Balloon Escape

Created: Tuesday, 19 April 2005

Monday, April 18, 2005
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On day 34 the mother of Michael Jackson's accuser resisted answering questions by defense attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr. and began her fourth day on the witness stand by making lengthy and rambling speeches to the jury. Melville had to again command her to "answer the question and don't volunteer additional information." However, she continued to break the conventions of criminal trials. She turned to speak to the jurors with every answer to Mr. Mesereau.

During another combative day on the stand, the woman admitted that she once told sheriff's deputies she feared Mr. Jackson had a plan for her and her family to disappear from his Neverland ranch in a hot air balloon.

However, she accused Mr. Mesereau of taking the comment out of context. "I told police that (Mr. Jackson's associates) had many ways to make us disappear," she said.

"And someone mentioned to you a hot air balloon?" Mr. Mesereau asked.

"That was one of the ways," she said.

Mr. Mesereau asked her what she meant when she told police that Mr. Jackson should have hired a tutor when her three children stayed at his Neverland Valley Ranch.

"That he's managed to fool the world, and I was one woman inside there," she said. "That's what I was trying to communicate. That what he puts out to the world is not who he is. And because of this criminal case ... now people know who he really is." Santa Barbara County Superior Court Judge Rodney Melville denied Mr. Mesereau's motion to have her statement struck from the record. It was one of only a few times the judge didn't grant motions by Mr. Mesereau or prosecutors to instruct jurors to disregard her rambling narratives as "unresponsive."

In spite of testimony and evidence already presented to the contrary, the mother also denied repeatedly that Mr. Jackson or anyone associated with him had tried to help her and her family when her son was stricken with cancer.

Asked whether Mr. Jackson arranged a blood drive at his Neverland ranch, she said, "I was responsible for that."

She then launched into an explanation about how the hospital would provide a bloodmobile anywhere she could arrange such an event.

"And Mr. Jackson allowed you to use the ranch for the blood drive?" asked Mr. Mesereau.

"Yes, this is correct," the woman said. But she added, "He wasn't the only one. Many church groups gathered."

Mr. Mesereau also elicited testimony that the woman received checks for $20,000 and deposited them in her mother's bank account. But she said she could not remember how any of the money had been used for her son.

She also said she opened a bank account in which people could deposit money for her son's benefit.

"Did you withdraw thousands of dollars from that account?" Mr. Mesereau asked.

"Yes," said the woman.

"And was any of that money for medical expenses?" the attorney asked.

"No," she said.

Contrary to previous reports of the newspaper employees, she denied that she misled a reporter for a local newspaper into writing a story saying the family was poverty-stricken and was paying $12,000 for each chemotherapy treatment the boy received. The story included an address to send contributions.

She said that the $12,000 figure was a typographical error and that she meant $1,200.

But she confessed ultimately that the family was responsible to pay for absolutely nothing because the father's health insurance covered the boy's treatment.

Throughout the trial, Mr. Mesereau has characterized the accuser's mother as the manipulative force behind what he says are false allegations of child molestation against Mr. Jackson.

Monday, he asked her repeatedly about whether she was involved in efforts to solicit money for the family after the accuser was diagnosed with cancer in 2000.

She insisted she did not ask for money and was not aware of two fund-raisers planned for her son at the Laugh Factory, a California comedy club. But she did admit she cashed two $10,000 checks given to the family by comedienne Louise Palanker, and that she withdrew money from a bank account set up for donations for her son.

She said she did so at the direction of her then-husband, the teen's father. She denied that any of the money had gone for her own use, saying it was used to pay living expenses and bills.

But she also said her husband, whom she later divorced, took some of the money and "went to Las Vegas."

Mr. Mesereau led her through questions and answers involving her relationship with comedian Chris Tucker and his girlfriend Aja, and she denied that the family solicited help, money or any other gifts from Tucker.

She acknowledged that Tucker once gave the family a car, but she said she never asked him to do that and asserted that he only did it because he had gotten his girlfriend a car and needed to make room for it.

Mr. Mesereau pressed her on whether she made any attempts to get help during the family's alleged period of captivity. On Monday, the woman was forced to acknowledge again that there were people she could have called on for help, including a lawyer who was dealing with her relationship with her estranged husband, but that she never did.

"Did you complain to anyone in the building that crimes were being committed against you and your family?" Mr. Mesereau asked.

"No, but I am now," she said.

Mr. Mesereau also noted that the woman was able to telephone comedian Louise Palanker during the alleged captivity.

"If you could call (Palanker), why couldn't you call police?" Mr. Mesereau said.

"I couldn't. I was hoping she could," the woman responded.

Mr. Mesereau then asked, "You didn't call 911?"

"I have now," the woman said.

Mr. Mesereau quizzed her about a claim for disability the woman filed in the late 1990s, citing depression, in which she said she was "sad about being a nobody."

"I'm still a nobody," she countered three times in reply.

Mr. Mesereau also asked why she had mentioned the names of Mr. Jackson and basketball star Kobe Bryant in an interview with police in 2001 when she was reporting domestic problems with her now ex-husband.

"That's because (my husband) was calling me a whore and said I was having sex with these people," she said.

The defense scored a key point against the 37-year-old woman by getting her to admit she alerted police to allegations that Mr. Jackson had plotted to kidnap her family only after consulting two lawyers. One of the attorneys represented a teenager who in 1994 won a settlement worth more than 20 million dollars from Mr. Jackson over earlier sex abuse allegations.

In another coup for Mr. Mesereau, the woman contradicted her version of why she recorded two taped interviews within four days in February 2003 in which she described Mr. Jackson as a beloved father figure to her children.

She said that a gushing interview with a private detective working for Mr. Jackson's then attorney on February 16 was unrehearsed, "from the heart."

But she insisted that a video recorded by Mr. Jackson aides just four days later was made under duress, and that her family's lavish praise of Mr. Jackson at that time was entirely scripted by the star's aides.

On Friday, the woman admitted lying under oath in a lawsuit she filed against a department store in 2000 in which she won a 152,000-dollar settlement over claims of wrongful arrest and sexual assault by security guards.

When Mr. Mesereau asked her Monday if she rehearsed her children about what to say in that case, she turned to jurors and said: "He's giving me too much credit. No I did not."

The trial began its eighth week Monday. The mother of the 15-year-old alleged victim is the 54th witness called by prosecutors.  Mr. Mesereau's cross-examination of her ended shortly before court recessed for the day. She will return for more follow-up questioning by the prosecution Tuesday.

Courtroom observers commented on the striking difference in the mother's appearance. In the 'rebuttal' video shown to jurors, her long hair is wet and crimped. In court, she wore a bob cut befitting a soccer mom. In the video, she has glossy red lips and perfectly shaped eyebrows, and bears a slight resemblance to actress Marisa Tomei.

In court, she was wan, wore eyeglasses and no makeup, and claimed to be a poor judge of character.

The witness was seemingly inexhaustible on the stand Friday. She continually dodged and weaved around simple yes-or-no questions, instead turning to the jurors and offering observations such as, "He's inaccurate," or "He's mixing up the facts, purposely." She laughed at Mr. Mesereau at one point. "You ... you are," she began to mumble. "I have a lot of thoughts in my heart about you."

Another time, she shot at him, "Are you missing the point?"

She seemed particularly peeved about the question of whether she was treated to a full body wax while under alleged captivity.

"Would it refresh your recollection to look at the receipt?" Mr. Mesereau asked, offering to show her the Feb. 11, 2003, receipt from a nearby Los Olivos salon, which indicates that $140 was spent on a leg, brow, lip, face and bikini wax.

The mother refused to look at it.

"I'm telling you, it was only a leg wax. He has the ability to choreograph everything," she said, pointing a finger at the defendant.

"And how about you?" Mr. Mesereau responded glibly.



 
Source: / AP / AFP / Reuters

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April 16 , 2005

Day 33: The Mother of the Accuser Admits Lies. and More Lies


Created: Saturday, 16 April 2005

On Day 33 Michael Jackson's lawyer savaged the credibility of his accuser's mother, making her admit she committed perjury, lying under oath at least twice and suggesting she wanted to cash in on the star's wealth. In one of the most explosive showdowns of the seven-week-old trial, attorney Thomas Mesereau launched an intense attack on the 37-year-old woman he has branded and showed evidence to support the fact that she is a rapacious money-grubber and "professional plaintiff."

In a grilling so fiery that trial Judge Rodney Melville warned the lawyer and witness to tone down their rhetoric, Mr. Mesereau accused the woman of acting and suggested that her claims against Mr. Jackson were "in her mind."

In his bid to undermine claims that Mr. Jackson and his aides kidnapped her family and implicitly threatened their lives, Mr. Mesereau forced her to concede she lied in a deposition she made when suing a department store in 2000.

"You lied under oath to increase the amount of money you could get ... correct?," Mr. Mesereau asked, referring to her claim she was sexually assaulted when she and her children were detained on suspicion of shoplifting.

Mr. Mesereau also noted that in a sworn statement, the woman said she had never been abused by her husband at the time - an important issue, because her alleged injuries may have been caused by such violence.  The woman had claimed she was never abused by her now ex-husband, who she later reported to authorities for beating her and abusing their three children.

"You were not telling the truth under oath when you made those statements," Mr. Mesereau said.

The woman eventually responded, "This is correct."

She also acknowledged being untruthful when she said in the lawsuit that her husband was honest.

"How many lies do you think you told in the JCPenney case?" Mr. Mesereau asked. In evasive responses, she reluctantly conceded she lied about anything to do with her then husband until his subsequent arrest.

Mr. Jackson's team claims the woman is a con artist with a history of coaching her children to lie under oath to win financial settlements, including the 152,000 dollars they won from the JCPenney store.

On the stand, the woman downplayed her role as whistleblower. "I give them [the police] information, and they did whatever they did with it," she testified.

Earlier, jurors heard the woman's teen-age daughter testify that her mother told her that she--the girl--had once been molested by her father. In court, the mother referred to the alleged molestation as an "event...that happened way over 10 years ago."

Mr. Mesereau, meanwhile, used a tape recording of a phone conversation between the mother and Mr. Jackson associate Frank Tyson to raise doubt as to the woman's claims of being held against her will by the singer's camp.

In the tape, the mother tells Tyson, one of Mr. Jackson's unindicted coconspirators, that she loves him and his family, even though she doesn't know his family. On the stand, the woman said she loved them the way she loves "people 50 and over--[I] have a tender spot in my heart."

Overall, the woman didn't think the tapes were honest at all--she claimed the recording had been "manipulated."

Legal analysts said Mr. Mesereau, who listened quietly to the testimony of the crucial prosecution witness for two days, seriously damaged her credibility.

"The more she talks, the worse its gets for the prosecution," said trial watcher Michael Cardoza. "She won't answer the simplest of questions," he said. "If this was a heavyweight fight, it would be stopped right now."

Mr. Mesereau suggested the defiant witness's stories of kidnapping were a tissue of lies and that she was in fact living in the lap of luxury as Mr. Jackson's guest at Neverland.

"How many times, in your mind, did you escape from that dungeon, Neverland?" Mr. Mesereau persisted, getting the woman to admit that she had left and returned three times during her alleged captivity.

"You didn't escape from Neverland at all, did you," he asked provocatively. "Oh yes I did," she retorted.

In a surprise revelation, she also conceded she was once investigated for allegedly abusing her own child -- the alleged victim in the case.

The witness gave as good as she got in her extremely testy sparring match against former boxer Mr. Mesereau, prompting the judge to warn he would cut the hearing short if the pair did not behave.

She pointedly corrected Mr. Mesereau, turning directly to jurors to say: "His statement is inaccurate."

In her testimony, she admitted under questioning that she had recently been in touch with the lawyer that brokered a settlement worth more than 20 million dollars for a boy who accused Mr. Jackson of abuse in 1993.

The war of words came a day after the woman wrapped up a complex and disjointed account of how Mr. Jackson aides allegedly used fear and intimidation to keep her family prisoner for three weeks in February and March 2003.

The woman claimed her family was then coerced into making a "rebuttal video" in which they described Mr. Jackson as a beloved father figure.

She said she did not want to make the video, which was played for jurors Friday, and claimed everything in it -- even the laughter -- was scripted: ""I was acting," the woman said. "I mean you are not going to call Halle Berry and say, 'Are you [really] Catwoman?' I am a poor actress."

But Mr. Mesereau shot back: "You are a good actress."

The judge chastised Mr. Mesereau for the remark and told the woman to refrain from delivering long answers unrelated to attorneys' questions, telling her, "It's as much your fault."

When Mr. Mesereau asked how it took to memorize her lines or how long the script was, she could not answer.

The mother said Mr. Jackson associates gave her a precise script to follow in the rebuttal video but later told her she had strayed too far from it, leading to the comments on her acting skills.

The woman testified that almost everything on the video - even breaks where the boy complains about his seat and the family laughs at jokes - was scripted by Mr. Jackson aides. She said the only departure from the script was when she discussed God, cancer and child welfare workers.

At one point on the tape, the boy speaks at great length about the agonies of undergoing cancer treatment.

"Do you believe what (he) was saying was the truth or not?" Mr. Mesereau asked the boy's mother.

"I believe what he was saying was according to a script," she said.

The woman suggested that she met with one of Mr. Jackson's associates 10 times at Neverland to discuss what she would say on the video. Mr. Mesereau noted that she had never said this before in interviews with police or prosecutors, and suggested she was trying to enhance her story.

Analyst Cardoza said the entire case, including the molestation charges, could hinge on whether the jury believes the woman and her son.

"If they believe the mother put the son up to it, then this case is over," he said.

Mr. Jackson's lawyers have suggested and displayed evidence to corroborate the fact that the child-molestation charges were concocted by the boy's mother in an attempt to shake down Mr. Jackson for money.

The showdown commenced with wrangling over a beauty treatment the woman underwent while she allegedly was being held captive two years ago. She insisted spitefully that she paid for the 'leg wax' until Mr. Mesereau produced the receipt, pointing out another lie in her stream of contradictory tesimony.

It devolved into defense attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr. derisively quipping that the prosecution's key adult witness was a fine actress.

Mr. Mesereau got the woman's hackles up with a question about whether it was Mr. Jackson bodyguard Chris Carter who once drove her from Neverland to a nearby salon for a body wax.

"Incorrect," the mother replied.

"Who took you for a body wax?" Mr. Mesereau asked.

"No one ever," she said.

"Well, you went for a body wax when you were at Neverland, did you not?" Mr. Mesereau asked.

"Inaccurate," the woman insisted.

And so the two went on, like Abbott and Costello, without the laughs, until it was established that the mother was not going to agree to Mr. Mesereau's statement until he used the correct terminology.

"I had a leg wax done... He keeps saying 'body wax,' " the woman said, in an apparent appeal to the jury. "There is no body wax."

The mother frequently referred to Mr. Mesereau as "he," declining to address the counsel directly.

Mr. Mesereau, meanwhile, went directly after the woman--the linchpin in the prosecution's conspiracy case against Mr. Jackson.

The hits kept coming. At one point, the woman very inappropriately even imitated Mr. Jackson's high-pitched voice.

Amid the tumult, Mr. Jackson was the model defendant.

Cross-examination of the witness is expected to continue when court resumes Monday.

In other developments, Celebrity Justice reported that CNN host Larry King was subpoenaed Friday to appear as a defense witness.

King's name surfaced at the trial earlier this month when Mr. Mesereau asked Larry Feldman, an attorney who represented the accuser's family, if he ever told King that the mother was "making up these allegations." Feldman denied making such a remark.



 
Source: / AP / AFP

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April 14 , 2005

Day 32: Mother of Accuser Claims Held Against Her Will, Makes No Effort to Get Help


Created: Thursday, 14 April 2005

On Day 32 the mother of Michael Jackson's accuser told jurors Thursday a bizarre and convoluted story of weeks during which she claims she was held against her will, even though she made no effort at all, to get help or contact authorities. Because of the close scrutiny, the woman said, she never managed to raise the alarm, even though she had unfettered access to a telephone and was taken out in public on shopping trips and on outings to beauty salons.

"All along through this period I'm trying to reach people, trying to get them to help me," she said.

She claimed she did not call police because she felt that would be too dangerous. In any case, she asked the court, "Who could possibly believe this?"

At one point, she said, she and the children returned to his Neverland ranch, and Mr. Jackson was there. She said her two sons and daughter played with Mr. Jackson while she spent time at a guest house and rarely went outside.

"Did you know where the boys were sleeping?" she was asked.

"No," she said.

The mother made no mention of her son being molested and mostly talked about how scared she was of Mr. Jackson's men.

She said she did not learn of any molestation allegations until she was informed by law enforcement authorities, who had been contacted by a psychologist to whom her children had been referred by a lawyer.

During the alleged period of captivity, the woman and her children made a video for Mr. Jackson in which they praised him. The woman said she was given a script to follow and was instructed to say repeatedly, "That he's a wonderful father. Basically, in summary, that he's a wonderful father ... to my children."

After recording the so-called rebuttal video near Neverland Ranch, the family was driven to meet with Los Angeles child welfare officials investigating Mr. Jackson's relationship with the woman's son following the airing of the TV documentary, she said.

The family told social workers Mr. Jackson had never acted inappropriately with any of the youngsters.

The prosecutor asked if she really believed the things she said on the video.

"I was confused, I was sad, so basically I was acting," she said.

Later she consulted a lawyer, who in turn referred her to the attorney who brokered a 20-million-dollar settlement deal for another teenager who accused Mr. Jackson of abuse in 1993.

Prosecutor Ron Zonen was left to rein in his own witness, who often responded in a chatty and animated tone. "You'll drive the court reporter nuts," Zonen warned her after she continually cut him off before finishing his questions.

He met one particularly long response with a dimly sarcastic "Anyway..." before repeating the question for which he still had not received an answer.

"And get this," she exclaimed, when asked to recount the time her alleged captors took her to Brentwood to have her legs waxed. "I paid for it myself, that's right."

After the salon visit, she said, she was told she could not bring her children home with her. So she retired to her boyfriend's apartment and her kids were taken back to Neverland.

Shortly afterward, the family was reunited. Allegations of molestation soon followed.

But the woman refuted defense claims that she plans to file a civil lawsuit seeking cash from Mr. Jackson on behalf of her children.

Defense lawyer Thomas Mesereau was quiet most of the day, and appeared to be allowing her rambling narratives and manic mannerisms to speak for themselves.

The mother's long-awaited testimony hit a legal roadblock Wednesday morning when she exercised her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination to avoid being questioned about alleged welfare fraud from 2001 to 2003.

Mr. Jackson's defense promised jurors in opening statements that they would provide evidence that the mother had been fraudulent on her welfare application. Mr. Jackson claims he has been victimized by a greedy family with a litigious past.

Because the mother escaped questioning on the welfare issue, the defense asked that she be forced to take the plea in front of jurors. The judge compromised by reading instructions to the jury explaining that she had claimed the privilege, and asking the jury not to fault either side for promises made during openings that could not be fulfilled by direct examination of the mother.

The defense's cross-examination of the mother is expected to begin Friday.




 
Source: / Reuters / AFP / AP

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April 13 , 2005

Day 31: Judge Allows Mother of the Accuser to Plead the Fifth on Shady Past


Created: Wednesday, 13 April 2005

Picking and choosing testimony.. Justice? "You can't allow a witness to pick and choose what he or she is going to be subject to on cross-examination," defense attorney Robert Sanger said, addressing the court.

In the end, Superior Court Judge Rodney S. Melville ruled the woman could do just that. He designated her welfare status an off-limit topic.

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On Day 31 the mother of the accuser took the witness stand after Judge Rodney S. Melville allowed her to testify despite her refusal to discuss her history of welfare fraud - an issue on which the defense had hoped to attack her credibility. With the jurors cleared from the courtroom, the woman short-circuited questions about her checkered welfare status. She invoked the Fifth Amendment in fending off that line of questioning and refused to discuss "everything to do with the welfare application."

The US Constitution allows witnesses to invoke the Fifth Amendment to avoid incriminating themselves during testimony, but the move is seen as a blow to the prosecution.

"It's a major set-back for the prosecution," said legal analyst Jim Moret.

"They need the accuser's mother for their conspiracy case," he said, adding that invoking the Fifth Amendment could raise serious questions about her credibility in the minds of jurors.

Judge Rodney Melville denied a defense request to prevent the woman -- who took the Fifth Amendment out of the jury's earshot -- from testifying altogether, as well as another request to declare a mistrial.

"Michael Jackson, who has been accused by this witness, has a right under counsel to vigorously cross examine this witness to show that she has committed acts of perjury and acts of fraud and that she is not credible," defense lawyer Robert Sanger argued.

But the judge ruled that the woman can testify, but that jurors will be informed that she has taken the Fifth over accusations that she accepted state benefit payouts that she was not entitled to.

"My understanding is that [the mother] will answer all questions put to her other than questions of her welfare application, questions that she answered in her welfare applications or in receipt of welfare benefits," prosecutor Ronald Zonen said.

The defense, predictably, wasn't pleased with the woman's plea.

Defense attorneys contend the family kept the bachelor apartment to make celebrities believe they were poor, but actually spent much of their time at the home of the boy's grandmother.

They also have raised questions about the woman's credibility by accusing her of bilking celebrities and committing welfare fraud. District Attorney Thomas Sneddon said in opening statements the woman would admit she took welfare payments to which she wasn't entitled.

While the prosecution likes to paint the woman as a long-suffering victim, it has long acknowledged that she is no saint.

In his opening argument, prosecutor Tom Sneddon warned jurors that the woman "obtained welfare funds when she wasn't entitled to them."  He seemed to be excusing the woman from the act which is clearly a crime.

"She's going to tell you that, and she's going to admit that," Sneddon said in January.

With the mother unwilling to talk or admit to welfare troubles herself, the defense moved in on the woman's current husband.

In his second day on the stand Wednesday, the Army reservist was peppered with questions about the depositing of several of the woman's welfare checks into his bank account in 2003.

"I don't know any rules with regards to welfare," the man testified. "I wasn't concerned about that. She was my girlfriend, they were her children. If I gave them any money [outside of the amount in the welfare checks], it was because it was out of goodness of my heart."

In an unusual move, Mr. Jackson's lawyers raised few objections during the woman's emotional testimony.

However, they are likely on cross examination to focus on what they say is the woman's history of making false claims, including one of sexual harassment.

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Defense Attorney, Tom Mesereau, who won't get a crack at the mother until at least Thursday, contented himself on this day by walking the stepfather through the family's repeated escapes and re-escapes from Neverland in February and March of 2003.

"[The mother] left Neverland, went to El Monte. All right, so that's leaving Neverland once," the man testified.

"Right," Mr. Mesereau agreed.

"She came to my apartment," the man continued.

"Right," Mr. Mesereau agreed again.

"Lots of phone calls [from Tyson], [then she] went back to Neverland, came back that night. Again, a bunch of phone calls and [then] she returned back to Neverland," the man recounted. "So, that would be three times."

The accuser's mother's testimony under direct examination by the prosecution, which followed the stepfather, was punctuated by weeping, flailing arms and finger stabbing toward Mr. Jackson, the mother's incredibly theatrical testimony was as dramatic as an earlier hearing on Wednesday when it was doubtful whether she would ever take the stand at all.

Looking directly at the jury during a convoluted and sometime seemingly, incoherent, account, the woman once punctuated her words by snapping her fingers and later affected the German accent of a Mr. Jackson associate. She addressed news reporters directly at one point, and at other times glanced at and spoke directly to Mr. Jackson, who sat motionless at the defense table.  The judge quickly admonished her not to address the defendant directly.

The accuser's mother said Mr. Jackson had convinced her that her children were in danger, that there were "killers" after them, and that he was the only one who could protect them.

"I thought, 'What a nice guy,'" she said. "I was just like a sponge, believing him, trusting him." In a spiteful recounting, she sarcastically called Mr. Jackson's "lovey dovey speech" at a Florida hotel room, in which Mr. Jackson told the family "in a very male voice" that he would be their father figure and protector.

She said Mr. Jackson told the family "that he loves us, that he cares about us, we're family. ... That we were in the back of the line, now we're in the front of the line, that he's going to protect us from those killers."

Later she added, in full theatrics: "And you know what? They ended up being the killers."

Asked by Senior Deputy District Attorney Ron Zonen about her memory of the events, she pointed dramatically to her head and exclaimed: "Some things are just burned in here."

She then offered an account, in conflict with testimony of other witnesses, in which she described seeing Mr. Jackson lick her son's head during a February 2003 flight from Miami to California on a private jet.

"Everyone was asleep. I had not slept for so long," she said. "I got up. I figured this was my chance to figure out what was going on back there. And that's when I saw Michael licking (the boy's) head."

She sobbed, pounded her chest and said, "I thought I was seeing things. I thought it was me."

During the first few hours of the woman's testimony, defense attorneys did not make a single objection.

 
Source: / Reuters / AFP / AP

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April 12 , 2005

Day 30: Stepfather Testifies He Sought Money From Jackson & Tabloids


Created: Tuesday, 12 April 2005

Tuesday, April 12, 2005 On Day 30 of Michael Jackson's trial the stepfather of his accuser testified that. Today's proceedings adjourned at 11:30 a.m, three hours earlier than usual.

The stepfather took the stand as the prosecution shifted from witnesses who alleged past improprieties by Mr. Jackson back to the current allegations.  The man, who married the boy's mother in 2004, more than a year after the sex abuse accusations surfaced, never met Mr. Jackson and did not witness any molestation by the 46-year-old superstar.

Part of the stepfather's testimony dealt with the period leading up to Feb. 19-20, 2003, when the boy, his brother, sister and mother made a rebuttal video in which they praised Mr. Jackson. Mr. Jackson's defense team has poured scorn on the stepfather's portrayal of the family as powerless captives and suggested that the family themselves had sought a reward in return for making the video statement.

The stepfather testified he began asking Mr. Jackson associate Frank Tyson what monetary compensation there was for the family if they participated in the rebuttal video. Tyson has been named by prosecutors as an unindicted co-conspirator in Mr. Jackson's case.

As the conversation continued, the witness said, Tyson "said he was going to offer a college education and a house." The stepfather said he told Tyson the family did not need a house or college, and asked, "What are you offering them monetarily?"  

At that point, the witness said, Tyson replied, "Are you trying to blackmail us?"

On cross-examination, Mr. Jackson's lawyer Tom Mr. Mesereau suggested that the stepfather had deemed the house and college education "not enough" payment for the family's cooperation.

The stepfather said he had no idea there was any information that could be used for blackmail. He also said he received "zero" money from Mr. Jackson.  He did however admit to conducting 'negotiations' for large amounts of money with a British tabloid to sell stories regarding Mr. Jackson.

(Excerpt from Court Transcript)

MR. MESEREAU: Okay. Now, at one point you indicated that you spoke to Frank Tyson and wanted to know what the family was going to get out of the rebuttal video, right?

ACCUSER'S STEPFATHER: Yes, sir.

MR. MESEREAU: And you actually mentioned at one point to Tyson that, "You're making millions out of this. What is this family going to get?" Right?

ACCUSER'S STEPFATHER: In -- in essence, I did say that.

MR. MESEREAU: And I believe you said that Mr. Tyson offered a house and a college education; is that correct?

ACCUSER'S STEPFATHER: First he offered protection. Then he said he was going to offer a tutor. Then he was going to offer a house and a college education.

MR. MESEREAU: And you, in effect, said to Mr. Tyson, "That's not enough," right?

ACCUSER'S STEPFATHER: That would be incorrect.

MR. MESEREAU: First you said, "You guys are making millions and this family's not getting anything," right? Right?

ACCUSER'S STEPFATHER: Are you asking me the question now to answer?

MR. MESEREAU: Yes.

ACCUSER'S STEPFATHER: Okay. I said basically that, "I understand that they're making four to five million dollars on this documentary. In my perception, that you should compensate this family for helping out in this video."

MR. MESEREAU: And at the end of that conversation, you in effect communicated to Frank a house is not enough, right?

ACCUSER'S STEPFATHER: That was not the way it came across, no, sir.

MR. MESEREAU: Okay. Did you accept the house?

ACCUSER'S STEPFATHER: I still don't have it, no. I don't see the house yet.

MR. MESEREAU: Are you still looking for it?

ACCUSER'S STEPFATHER: I'm not even looking for it.

MR. MESEREAU: Okay. And are you telling the jury that there was no response to your comment that, in effect, somebody's making four to five million dollars and the family's not getting any money?

 ACCUSER'S STEPFATHER: His response was, "Well, how about" -- "I'm going to protect the family. We're going to protect the family."

MR. MESEREAU: Right.

ACCUSER'S STEPFATHER: "We're going to give them a house. We're going to give them a college education." And I said, "Frank, but what are you going to do financially or monetarily for this family?"

(End of Excerpt from Court Transcript)

The stepfather described a tumultuous time in February 2003 when the mother and children was whisked off to Florida, purportedly to hold a news conference with Mr. Jackson, returned and taken to Neverland, then brought back to Los Angeles.

During that period, he said they gave an audio interview to a private investigator, filmed the rebuttal video and were interviewed by child welfare authorities.

Prosecutors allege the molestation occurred near the end of the family's purported captivity.

"And in the middle of all this turmoil, to your knowledge, molestation began on the 20th (of February)?" Mr. Jackson's attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr. asked incredulously. The judge sustained an objection and the question was not answered.

(Excerpt from Court Transcript)

MR. MESEREAU: .when Janet and the children went to Miami - okay? --

ACCUSER'S STEPFATHER: Yes, sir.

MR. MESEREAU: -- your understanding was they were going to film some kind of rebuttal for Michael Jackson -

ACCUSER'S STEPFATHER: Or press conference, right.

MR. MESEREAU: -- Right? No, you said rebuttal.

ACCUSER'S STEPFATHER: I said rebuttal, but it's the same thing. It was going to be a press conference that they were going to do to rebut what was being done -- what had been -- what was going to be said in the "Living with Michael Jackson."

MR. MESEREAU: You said they were going to film a rebuttal, right?

ACCUSER'S STEPFATHER: Yes, sir.

MR. MESEREAU: And you said at that time Janet believed Michael Jackson was innocent, correct?

ACCUSER'S STEPFATHER: That is correct, sir.

(End of Excerpt from Court Transcript)

The stepfather said when the boy returned from Neverland for the last time his behavior was markedly changed.

Asked by the prosecution to describe the change in the boy, the stepfather said, "He'd become mean. He was using curse words. He had never done that before."

He also said of the boy, "He was acting very cocky, kind of rude, actually. I don't think he wanted to see me. It was almost like, 'What are you doing here?'"

On cross-examination, Mr. Mesereau noted the accuser's previous disciplinary problems at school, and then played for jurors a Feb. 16, 2003, audio tape in which the accuser's mother lauds Mr. Jackson as being "like a father ... unselfish, kind, exhibiting unconditional love."

During the 20-minute tape, the stepfather rocked in his chair, occasionally rolled his eyes and shook his head.

During the family's final trip to Neverland, the stepfather said, he heard little from them until the mother called him asking to meet at a Los Angeles area nail salon. There, he found her looking distressed and accompanied by her son and another Jackson associate.

The associate told him that the mother was not allowed to leave. "I said 'Are you saying I can't take her out of here?.' He said 'I've got to check on that,"' the stepfather told the jury. Ultimately, the mother went to her home and the boy went back to Neverland but returned home for the final time the very next day.

The man also conceded that while at the nail salon he was only blocks from a federal building and from his work -- places where Mr. Mesereau suggested he could easily have sought help.

Mr. Jackson's lawyers say the family voluntarily stayed at Neverland in the lap of luxury, were treated to shopping expeditions and beauty salon treatments at the singer's expense and never tried to call for help.

The accuser and his two siblings have already testified to their alleged luxurious incarceration.

When he continues his cross examination Wednesday, lead defense attorney Thomas Mesereau is certain to stress that the stepfather spoke several times with a British tabloid that was offering 15,000 dollars for the family's story.

The prosecution said Monday it would call the accuser's mother as early as Tuesday after some legal problems with her testimony, regarding extensive welfare fraud, are resolved.


 
Source: / Reuters / AFP / AP

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April 12 , 2005

Day 29: 1993 Accuser's Mother Admits She Never Witnessed Any Molestation


Created: Monday, 11 April 2005

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Day 29 brought the mother of a boy who received a settlement from Michael Jackson in 1993 to the stand. After the boy received a reported multimillion-dollar settlement from Mr. Jackson, he did not cooperate in a law enforcement investigation, nor does he intend to now. No charges were ever filed against Mr. Jackson in the matter. She admitted that she never witnessed any molestation or improper acts between Mr. Jackson and her son.

The woman's now 25-year-old son is not expected to testify at Mr. Jackson's trial in the California town of Santa Maria. The woman is one of the most important witnesses to be called by prosecutors to testify to previous alleged abuse of five young boys by Mr. Jackson, although she admitted that she had not spoken to her son for 11 years.   The mother seemed poised and composed throughout most of her testimony, but seemed to hold back tears when she spoke of her long estrangement from her son.


The question remains whether her son will not speak to her because he is upset over what allegedly happened between himself and Mr. Jackson or perhaps whether he is upset at the allegations that he was possibly forced to bring against Mr. Jackson, thereby forever altering his life, his privacy and his future.

Mr. Mesereau sought to shed light on the original motivation of the witness in 1993 by  a line of questioning regarding  past conversations that she had had with the authorities.

(Excerpt from Court Transcript)



MR. MESEREAU:  Didn't you tell the Los Angeles District Attorney that your ex-husband Evan, the father of Jordie, told you that the relationship with Michael was a wonderful means of Jordie not having to worry for the rest of his life?

MOTHER OF 1993 ACCUSER: Yes.

MR. MESEREAU: And to you, that meant Michael Jackson supporting you financially for the rest of your life, correct?

MOTHER OF 1993 ACCUSER: No.

MR. MESEREAU: That's what you thought your ex-husband meant by it, true?

MR. SNEDDON: Calls for speculation.

THE WITNESS: Speculation.

THE COURT: Sustained. Sustained.

 (Laughter.)

MR. MESEREAU: Just asking you what you thought, not what your ex-husband thought.

MOTHER OF 1993 ACCUSER: Well, I'm speculating also. I would be speculating if I answered.

MR. MESEREAU: Well, if someone says to you, "This is a wonderful way not to have to worry for the rest of our life," doesn't that suggest that maybe someone is thinking about Michael Jackson supporting you?

MR. SNEDDON: Your Honor, I'm going to object. We just went through this. Calls for speculation.

THE COURT: Sustained.

(End of Excerpt)

The Defense has portrayed parallels between the two cases that demonstrate that both families were determined to elicit money from Mr. Jackson, that they lied to get it, and went to civil attorneys before contacting authorities.

Mr. Jackson, who has pleaded not guilty to all charges of child molestation often shook his head and whispered to his defense lawyers during the testimony.

During cross-examination, lead defense attorney, Thomas Mesereau Jr., asked if the mother recalled asking for a $4 million loan to cover for $5 million worth of debt. "Never" she responded.

"When you filed the lawsuit, your attorney was threatening to ruin Mr. Jackson's music deals, correct?" Mr. Mesereau asked, to which she answered "I don't recall". At that time, Jackson had just negotiated the largest endorsement deal in the history with Pepsi Co.

"Your strategy was to negotiate a settlement before ever contacting authorities, correct?" the defense attorney asserted. "There was no strategy. Sorry" the woman insisted.

On cross examination, the woman said her daughter and herself spent the day shopping with Mr. Jackson's credit card during the time the alleged molestation happened.

Earlier Monday, another witness surprised the prosecution by saying he did not remember seeing the pop star lick the same boy's head during a long flight in the early 1990s, but he later reversed himself and said it must have happened after being confronted with an e-mail he wrote.


The extremely consistent pattern of prosecution witnesses having memory lapses continued as former Michael Jackson publicist Bob Jones initially testified that "I don't recall ever seeing any head licking" by Mr. Jackson on the flight from Paris to Los Angeles.


Prosecutor Gordon Auchincloss then read a proposed passage from a book Jones is writing that stated that Mr. Jackson licked the boy's head.


Prosecutors claim Mr. Jackson also licked the head of a boy who now accuses Mr. Jackson of molesting him in early 2003.


Bob Jones was fired by Mr. Jackson a year ago. Reportedly, Jones was very angry about the termination.


Under cross-examination by defense attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr., Jones said that passages he writes are completed by a co-writer, MSNBC correspondent, Stacy Brown, and then reviewed. Jones said he had not reviewed the passage and it was inaccurate.


Jones was only the most recent prosecution witness to surprise prosecutors. For example, former Mr. Jackson former house manager Jesus Salas had told investigators that he brought wine to Mr. Jackson and several boys, but said on the stand that he had just remembered that he brought soda as well as wine.


 
Source: / AP / AFP / SB News-Press

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April 10 , 2005

Day 28: 'But your idea of justice was millions of bucks?' Defense Exposes Former Employees


Created: Saturday, 09 April 2005

Friday, April 8, 2005 On Day 28 Michael Jackson's former maid testified Friday at the singer's child molestation trial that she and other employees of the pop star used a "media broker" to sell stories to tabloids including one claiming inside knowledge of Mr. Jackson's sex life with ex-wife Lisa Marie Presley.

Adrian McManus, who earlier testified for the prosecution that she saw Mr. Jackson in compromising positions with young boys, insisted under cross-examination that she was not out to get Mr. Jackson's money even when she and four other Neverland employees sued him for millions.

"I wanted justice," she said of the suit, which backfired and resulted in a large judgment against the plaintiffs.

"But your idea of justice was millions of bucks?" asked Mr. Jackson lawyer Thomas Mr. Mesereau Jr.

"That's not what I call justice," said the witness. "Honestly, a simple 'sorry for what we did to you' would have been enough for me."

But Mr. Mesereau noted that McManus and the others spent many months and large amounts of money pursuing their suit against Mr. Jackson, and he elicited from her the fact that they went to tabloids to fund their lawsuit.

McManus acknowledged that she signed agreements with the Star and the Splash media and picture agency to sell purported secrets about Mr. Jackson's life with Presley.

Mr. Jackson married Presley in May 1994. Presley filed for divorce in January 1996, saying they had formally separated the previous month. McManus was a Neverland maid from 1990 to 1994.

"Do you recall trying to sell what you called Mr. Jackson's sex secrets?" Mr. Mesereau  asked McManus.

"Something like that," she said.

She identified in court the contract with Star.

"And you were quoted in a Star story with the headline, 'Kinky secrets of Michael and Lisa Marie's bedroom,' " Mr. Mesereau  said.

"I didn't say that," the witness insisted, adding, "A lot of times with those tabloids they say other stuff."

But she acknowledged that during the time she was at Neverland she saw Presley visit and that through a media broker she offered the tabloids information on the relationship.

"And in that contract you agreed to provide information on Mr. Jackson's relationship with Lisa Marie Presley?" Mr. Mesereau  asked.

"Yes," she said, and also confirmed that a security guard, Ralph Chacon, signed the contract as well.

Another ex-employee took the stand against Mr. Jackson Friday testifying that he once saw Mr. Jackson with his hand inside child star Macaulay Culkin's shorts but didn't tell anyone because "nobody would have ever believed this."

Macaulay Culkin has repeatedly denied anything inappropriate happened.

Phillip LeMarque, who said he and his wife worked for Mr. Jackson for 10 months in 1991, said he never made his allegations until 1993, when authorities came to him in connection with another child's claims against Mr. Jackson.

Under cross-examination by Mr. Jackson's attorney Thomas Mesereau  Jr., LeMarque acknowledged that he and his wife considered selling the story to the tabloids and that he told an intermediary he wanted $500,000.

LeMarque said he and his wife sued Mr. Jackson after they quit, claiming they were owed overtime pay. He said the lawsuit was settled.

During a break in testimony, Judge Rodney Melville barred the defence from raising the issue of LeMarque's later work as the operator of a pornographic Web site.


 
Source: / Reuters / AFP

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April 10 , 2005

Day 27: Former Employees Sold False Stories to Fund Suit Against Mr. Jackson, Jackson Won


Created: Friday, 08 April 2005

Thursday, April 7, 2005 Day 27 of Michael Jackson's trial featured testimony from a security guard that had been fired for stealing at Mr. Jackson's ranch before he ever brought any accusations against Mr. Jackson.

The former security guard, Ralph Chacon, was attacked by Mr. Jackson's lawyer as making the whole thing up "to get even." Defense attorney Thomas Mr. Mesereau Jr. accused Chacon of having tried to "extort" $16 million from Mr. Jackson in a lawsuit and lengthy trial that he and the former maid lost, forcing Chacon into bankruptcy.

"After a six-month trial, this is a good way to get even with him, isn't it?" said Mr. Mesereau, drawing a strong objection from the prosecution.

Mr. Jackson's lawyers exposed Ralph Chacon, painting him as a cash-strapped, disgruntled former employee who was out to extort Mr. Jackson.

The boy, that Chacon says he saw engaged in what he defines as 'inappropriate behavior' with Mr. Jackson, received a financial settlement, from Mr. Jackson in 1994. The boy did not cooperate with a police investigation and no charges were filed against Mr. Jackson. The boy is not scheduled to testify in the trial.

Adrian McManus, a Mr. Jackson maid between 1990 and 1994, also testified Thursday that she saw Mr. Jackson kiss Macaulay Culkin on the cheek while his hand was on Culkin's bottom. The defense has asserted that Culkin has repeatedly said he was never molested, and a spokeswoman for the actor has said he has no plans to be part of the case.

But McManus also testified that when subpoenaed in the lawsuit that resulted in the 1994 settlement she did not tell attorneys that she had seen Mr. Jackson touching the boy.

"I didn't tell the truth. I said I didn't see anything," she said.

Chacon also acknowledged he was ordered to pay $25,000 for allegedly stealing Mr. Jackson's property, which Chacon said was only a candy bar, and that he and others, including McManus, were ordered to pay more than $1.4 million in a judgment won by Mr. Jackson. Chacon said he had not paid anything because he filed for bankruptcy.

Lead defense lawyer Thomas Mr. Mesereau pointed out that Chacon and other former Neverland employees had lost a wrongful dismissal lawsuit against Mr. Jackson and that trial jurors found they had acted with malice toward Mr. Jackson.

In heated cross-examination, Chacon acknowledged that when he and other employees decided to sue Mr. Jackson they consulted a lawyer who told them the only way they could fund the suit was to sell stories to tabloids. He said they sold a story for $17,000 and all the money went to the lawyer.

Mr. Mesereau pressed him on whether he drafted the story at the lawyer's office.

"I probably did," said Chacon. "It's been a long time."

"Well, it's no longer than some of these events you claim to have witnessed with Mr. Jackson," Mr. Mesereau replied.

The witness paused and said, "I probably did. I did."

He fended off Mr. Mesereau's suggestions that he has added "more lurid facts" each time he has told his story, but he acknowledged that this week he met with Sneddon and gave him additional details.

"Did you say you forgot to say things about Mr. Mr. Jackson molesting young men in 1993?" asked Mr. Mesereau.

"Yes, sir," said the witness.

"And now you remember them in 2005?" Mr. Mesereau said.

"Vaguely, yes," Chacon said.

Contrary to news reports, Mr. Jackson's mother left the courtroom during her son's child molestation trial last week to use the rest room - not to avoid hearing graphic testimony.

"Accusing me of leaving due to graphic testimony when I simply went to the rest room is not fair, not accurate," she said in a written statement.

Katherine Jackson stepped out during a break when attorneys were meeting in the judge's chambers. When she tried to re-enter, the jury had already been seated and she had to wait until the next break.


 
Source: / Reuters / AFP

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