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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