Created: Friday, 04 March 2005
DAY 5: Accuser’s Family Praises Mr. Jackson in Video
Day 5 has brought another day of cross-examination of the accuser’s sister. Once again, what was intended to be a witness for the prosecution has seem to unfold as a valuable and supportive testimony for the defense, against all efforts to the contrary by the DA’s office.
The family now accusing Michael Jackson of child molestation was seen by jurors Friday in a video praising him as a father figure, and the sister of the accuser testified under cross-examination that she had accused her own father of molesting her, imprisoning her and making terrorist threats.
The mother praised Mr. Jackson as an “ideal family man” who had made her children happier than they had ever been in a two-year-old videotape played for jurors on Friday in Mr. Jackson’s molestation trial.
“God worked through Michael to help us,” the mother of the accuser said in the video played for the jury. “When we saw no hope Michael said there was hope. … We were broken and Michael fixed us.”
The video, which was made around the same time that the accuser alleges the molestation took place, was played during testimony by the accuser’s 18-year-old sister, who underwent questioning by District Attorney Tom Sneddon and cross-examination by Mr. Jackson attorney Thomas Mr. Mesereau Jr.
During cross-examination intended to show the family has a history of making allegations, the witness acknowledged the accusations against her father, who is divorced from her mother.
Mr. Mesereau asked the young woman if she had once told police she was being abused by her father five times a week, and she answered, “We were abused every day.”
She said she learned that she was sexually abused through something her mother blurted out.
“When you were interviewed by police you never told them your father molested you,” she said.
“They weren’t asking me about that and I was very young,” she said. But she then added, “It was a horrible experience to find out … that he had done that to me when I was young. My mother screamed it out to him.”
Mr. Mesereau asked if the father appeared to agree with the accusation and she said yes.
The sister testified Thursday that Mr. Jackson’s associates had the family make the tape about two weeks after a Feb. 6, 2003, TV documentary by British journalist Martin Bashir in which her brother appeared with Mr. Jackson, who said he allowed the boy to sleep in his bed while he slept on the floor.
Sneddon claims that all of the rebuttal video was staged and scripted even though their many of their answers are long and spontaneous.
The sister was seen in the video with tears streaming down her face and saying of Mr. Jackson, “He’s a very caring, humble man. He took us under his wing when no one else would.” She spoke of her brother’s affliction with cancer and that Mr. Jackson “helped him so much.”
The boy’s mother delivered a dramatic and seemingly heartfelt tribute to a man she said “made us his family.”
The boy at one point said that he asked Mr. Jackson, “Can I call you daddy?” and that Mr. Jackson said that was fine.
The mother spoke of a life of deprivation and rejection. “We weren’t the right ZIP code, the right race. All the doors closed on us. Michael said, ‘My doors are open.'”
The video, which lasted more than an hour, was played in a hushed courtroom where Mr. Jackson’s mother, Katherine, sat dabbing at her eyes with a tissue and his sister LaToya and brother Jackie sat beside her.
Jurors watched intently and some of them took notes.
“Michael,” the boy was heard saying, “he treats me like he’s my father.” The boy’s brother spoke up and said, “He makes me feel like his son and he lets me call him father and he calls us sons.”
The sister again spoke on the video, saying that one day while crying about her brother, Mr. Jackson “hugged me and said it was going to be OK. The fact he stood up and defended us, that’s a father,” she said of Mr. Jackson.
The mother, her hair carefully coifed and wearing fashionable makeup, repeatedly spoke of the miracle of Mr. Jackson coming into their life. “It’s a wish come true to see my children interact with a father role model,” she declared. She spoke of abuse by her ex-husband and said she felt a responsibility to make sure that her children were safe. “When they are with Michael, he spreads his wings and my children have happiness they never have had in their life. And he hasn’t left me out. I appreciate him with all my heart,” she said.
Off camera, an interviewer asked the family questions and suggested that they say things about Mr. Jackson. The boy who is now accusing Mr. Jackson gave him credit for helping to cure his cancer. “We were driving up the hill and he told me, ‘You need to get better.’ He told me, ‘You need to eat up all those cancer cells like Pac-Man.’ I never forgot that,” the boy said.
At one point, the mother spoke about money and financial problems that have plagued them. “We know what it is to be poor but in all the time with Michael there are no money problems. He fulfills our needs,” she said.
She said of Bashir, “He took a beautiful relationship and spun it out of control. God works through people and so does the devil.”
But when Mr. Mesereau questioned the sister on the stand, she insisted that no one in her family has ever seen the documentary.
Asked about her mother’s statements about how poor they were, the witness said, “She was just trying to make it more dramatic. There was a script.”
“So are you saying everything you said on the tape was memorized?” asked Mr. Mesereau.
“Not everything,” the girl said.
Additionally, when asked by Mr. Mesereau, she admitted that she had indeed met with Sneddon last night to discuss her testimony.
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