Created: Saturday, 21 May 2005
Thursday, May 5, 2005 Day 46 featured the commencement of the defense’s case in the Michael Jackson trial. Mr. Jackson’s lawyers opened their case Thursday, calling a young man who grew up knowing Mr. Jackson and denied a prosecution witness’s claim that he took a shower with him.
The defense opened after Judge Rodney S. Melville denied its motion for an acquittal. Mr. Jackson’s attorneys had argued that the state failed to prove its case, and that prosecution witnesses had “a tendency to self-destruct” on the stand.
Two young men portrayed by prosecutors as Michael Jackson’s victims when they were adolescents emphatically denied on Thursday that he ever abused them.
In dramatic testimony to open Mr. Jackson’s defense case, both Wade Mr. Robson and Brett Barnes said they remained friends with Mr. Jackson with whom they had shared a bed on countless occasions at his Neverland Valley Ranch.
“Did Mr. Jackson ever molest you at any time?” lead defense attorney Tom Mr. Mesereau asked Mr. Robson, a 22-year-old choreographer and former child dance prodigy who has worked with Britney Spears.
“Absolutely not,” Mr. Robson responded.
“Did Mr. Jackson ever touch you in a sexual way?” Mr. Mesereau asked.
“No, never,” Mr. Robson said .
Earlier in the trial, a former maid for Mr. Jackson who has also tried to make money by selling false stories about Mr. Jackson to the tabloids and is the mother of a boy who received a settlement from Mr. Jackson in the 1990s after accusing him of molestation, testified previously that she once saw Mr. Jackson showering with Mr. Robson. Mr. Robson said he had never showered with Mr. Jackson.
Another former Neverland employee had told the jury that she once saw Mr. Jackson touch Mr. Barnes’ buttocks when he was a teen. But Mr. Barnes, now 23, flatly rejected any suggestion of inappropriate behavior by Mr. Jackson.
“Absolutely not and I can tell you if he had I wouldn’t be here right now,” he said. Asked if he was aware of the earlier testimony, a defiant Mr. Barnes said: “I am and I’m very mad about that because it’s untrue. They are putting my name through dirt and I’m really, really, really not happy about it.”
Mr. Barnes says he stayed with Mr. Jackson at least 10 times but was never molested.
The first defense witness, professional dancer Wade J. Robson, said he has known Mr. Jackson since the age of 5 and stayed at his Neverland ranch more than 20 times. He slept in Mr. Jackson’s bedroom on all but three or four of those visits, he said.
The two played video games, watched movies, talked and sometimes had pillow fights, but Mr. Robson, 22, said Mr. Jackson never touched him in an inappropriate or sexual way.
In cross-examination, prosecutor Ron Zonen, reaching to substantiate his case, suggested that when Mr. Robson said Mr. Jackson never molested him, “What you’re really telling us is that nothing happened when you were awake.”
“I’m telling you nothing ever happened,” Mr. Robson answered.
Though the acccusations of Mr. Jackson’s conduct with Mr. Robson and Mr. Barnes are not part of the current charges against him, legal experts say the testimony about Mr. Jackson’s past history with young boys may have been the most damaging part of the prosecution case.
On cross-examination, Deputy District Attorney Ron Zonen pressed both men over the propriety of young boys sleeping with a grown man and even challenged Mr. Robson’s assertion Mr. Jackson had never touched him inappropriately.
Zonen then showed him books with photos partially nude young boys seized from Mr. Jackson’s home. Mr. Robson refused to agree that the material Zonen had shown him could be considered homoerotic and said he believed Mr. Jackson “has a sexual interest in women.”
The motion for acquittal was filed by the defense immediately after the prosecution rested. Such motions are common and are rarely successful.
Mr. Jackson’s attorneys said the accuser, his brother and his mother told a string of lies on the stand, calling the mother a “bizarre” witness who told a “whopper.”
“This is one of the most clearly deceptive witnesses that has ever appeared in any court,” defense attorney Robert Sanger said.
He said the mother was clearly dishonest when she said that her video interview rebutting the documentary was false. He also said that, among many contractions, the accuser’s brother falsely said he never pulled a knife on a woman, and the sister gave false accounts of where she slept at Neverland.
Sanger also said witnesses such as flight attendant Cynthia Bell, former Mr. Jackson employee Jesus Salas and Mr. Jackson’s ex-wife Deborah Rowe were called by the prosecution but gave testimony favorable to Mr. Jackson.
District Attorney Tom Sneddon, who has pursued Mr. Jackson vehemently for more than a decade, countered that the evidence against Mr. Jackson was overwhelming.
The judge said he was reluctant to make a decision about the credibility of the witnesses, suggesting that was the jury’s job.
Melville also heard arguments but did not immediately rule on whether some items presented during the prosecution case had been sufficiently authenticated by testimony to be admitted into evidence.
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