Quote of the day from the accuser’s mom: “Now the world really knows who Michael Jackson is. What he puts out in the world is not who he really is.” It was one of her now-famous, scaathing asides to the jury — a compulsion she’s been perfecting during her four days of testimony.
But today, defense attorney Tom Mesereau trapped her using an audio tape in which the mom praised Michael Jackson, made just four days before the so-called rebuttal video. She said the first tape was made “from the heart” — the second, under hours of brainwashing and false imprisonment — but she said virtually the same thing on both, praising Jackson without qualification. Is her story unraveling?
A key timeline error, too. She said lawyer Bill Dickerman wouldn’t help her because she wouldn’t reveal information she was sharing with police. The police, she said, told her it would compromise the case. In reality, she didn’t go to the police for months later.
Jackson’s defense scored some points — and ended with a very intriguing admission. The mom acknowledged she did not learn about her son being molested until Santa Barbara County D.A. Tom Sneddon told her about it. Apparently neither psychologist Stan Katz, nor her attorney Larry Feldman, told her. Why didn’t they? Didn’t the mother have a right to know?
The prosecution began its re-direct by showing photos of the woman, battered and bruised from the beating she said she was given by J.C. Penney security guards in an earlier civil case, and a photo of her son with his broken arm in a sling. It was instant rehabilitation, backs her story about the attack, and helps put to rest charges that she is a professional litigator — unless you believe the theory that the dad beat her and her son simply to cash in. Impressive legal work on both sides.
Courtroom artists Bill Robles and Vicki Behringer sketched away happily through the day (that’s Bill's work below), but good-natured Judge Rodney Melville was stressed. He admonished the mother several times for her outbursts, saying: “Just a minute. He’s asked you three times. Just answer the question!”
He also called Mesereau on the carpet several times. When Mesereau wanted to play audio evidence the court has already heard several times, the judge sounded like he simply couldn’t bear to sit through it again. He asked, “What’s the point? Getting her to say she said these things isn’t getting us anywhere.”
And the mom’s asides to the jury are getting on everyone’s nerves. When Tom Mesereau asked whether she had rehearsed her children in what to say during her civil suit against J.C. Penney, she didn’t answer — just turned to the jury and said, “He’s giving me too much credit.” She seems like she wants to trivialize Mesereau.
Many legal analysts were wondering about the mother’s mental state, except for former prosecutor Susan Filan who said, “She may be a little bit paranoid, she may be a little bit weird. But just like we can’t convict Michael Jackson for being weird, we can’t discredit her for being weird.”
The balloon story rose to the top of the incredible list on its own. Tom Mesereau asked whether she’d told tell law enforcement that Jackson’s staff could make her children disappear in a hot air balloon over Neverland. “I made them aware they had ways — and this was one of them.”
“Did you tell Laugh Factory owner Jamie Masada that you were so poor that you and your family were living in a stable with hay and horses in Bakersfield?” She denied it, and most of the other quotes from dozens of people.
Mesereau is obviously laying the groundwork for impeachment by witnesses he intends to call later in this trial.
Mesereau asked the woman how many times she let her children go back to Neverland after she supposedly saw Michael Jackson lick her son’s head on a jet. She refused to number them, but admitted it was an error in judgment.
She said she never asked where her boys were sleeping at Neverland because she assumed “children stayed with children.”
She claimed a journalist at The Mid-Valley News in El Monte got the story wrong when the reporter published a story saying her son’s cancer treatment injections cost $12,000 not $1,200, and by not mentioning Kaiser covered all of her son’s medical bills. The story triggered a fundraiser and she claimed the paper was in cahoots with her ex-husband. She said she never knew any fundraisers were happening — her husband took care of that.
She also claimed she never discussed the Martin Bashir documentary with anyone. Really? Go figure.
The mother described the secret code she said she used in trying to alert friends she was being held against her will. She said she would say one word — say another sentence — then say another word and hope people would sit down later and say to themselves, “Hey, that word shouldn’t have belonged in that sentence.”
Little hints, she called them, but she did not call police though she had countless opportunities to do so. She said Jackson’s associates knew where her parents lived and she feared for their lives. “I wanted to reach for the police,” she said, “but my parents’ lives were at risk.”
I really think that he didn't do it, but he can't keep letting these children go inside of his house. I beleive that this woman only wants his money and nothing else, but she has it in her mind that, if this person just went to trial, for the same thing then he will probably get convicted of sexual assualt and go to prison or get fined. Now she comes twenty years later and charges him with sexual assualt. No, way and that is just my point of view, because if it was my child in this situation I would have been quick to press charges.
Posted by: KaNesha Sheriff | Thursday, May 05, 2005 at 05:41 AM