Mothers and sisters of Brett Barnes and Wade Robson heap praise and trust on Michael Jackson, but why let kids sleep with an adult who's not in the family?
It was all-Aussie day of testimony, and one that began with flowers. One female juror brought gift-wrapped roses for all the others, and handed them out in the parking lot before court began. We assume it was a Mother’s Day thing. We’re not allowed to speak with them, of course.
I L L U S T R A T I O N S B Y B I L L R O B L E S
Joy Robson was the first mother on the stand, the mother of choreographer Wade Robson who, with Brett Barnes, testified yesterday that Jackson never molested them.
Robson said that her son knew he wanted to be an entertainer since he was five years old. “He decided, not me,” she said.
District Attorney Tom Sneddon seized on it as a possible motive. Was she thinking her son’s friendship with Jackson would help her son’s career? “I’m not trying to put words in your mouth…” said Sneddon. Robson cut him off. “Yes, you are.”
She said that she saw in Jackson an entertainer who was teaching her son everything Jackson knew about show biz. Wade has gone on to become a world-class choreographer whose clients have included Brittney Spears and ’N Synch, and he is also a film director with a three-picture deal with Disney.
“He was learning from the best,” she said, adding that Jackson told her that he saw himself in Wade.
Did Jackson take the mentoring too far, and too fast? Joy Robson said she and her husband allowed their son and daughter to stay in Jackson’s bedroom
the first night of their first visit to Neverland. The kids’ grandparents had come along, too. It was the first time the family had met Michael, one-on-one. They’d chatted once before at a reception in Australia.
Was she aware that Jackson’s bedroom was the only room at Neverland that locked from the inside, and that chimes announced anyone approaching? Robson said she had free access to Jackson’s bedroom, any time of day or night. “To know him is to love him… It wasn’t a problem,” she said. “I think there’s a certain trust we developed immediately.”
“Trust” was the operative word today. It’s the mind-boggling Jackson Factor that the defense somehow has to sell to the jury and the court of public opinion — that Jackson is so innocent, so pure, that he can trump every natural instinct a mother has to protect her kids in order to satisfy his wish to sleep with children.
What’s the downside risk if a mother might be wrong about Jackson’s motives? The possibilty of severe damage to their child’s psychological and emotional health?
The prosecution made that proposition through the son of a former Neverland maid who testified he was touched by Jackson when he was 7 and 10 years old. Now 24, he indicated he has still not yet healed after years of therapy. (He and his mother settled out of court for millions.)
It’s a point the prosecution made repeatedly again today. “Don’t you consider it inappropriate for an 8- or 10-year-old to sleep with a 35-year-old man who’s not a family member?”
Each of the mothers and sisters who took the stand said that in Jackson’s case it wasn’t an issue.
“Did you ever lose trust in Michael Jackson?” asked defense attorney Tom Mesereau. Both Joy Robson and Marie Barnes said they had not, though they knew that other children had slept with Jackson. These mothers, and their daughters and sons, are staying with Jackson at Neverland during their testimony. If their sons had been treated inappropriately, would they be there now?
Marie Lisbeth Barnes stayed in a Neverland guest unit for three weeks in 1992 while her son and daughter both slept in Jackson’s bedroom. Jackson took them to Disneyland and Las Vegas. “I still trust him,” she said of Jackson, “He’s a very nice person. You can feel when you trust someone.”
Marie Barnes, who phoned Neverland from her home in Melbourne and volunteered to testify, said letting her son Brett go on two world tours with Jackson that each lasted half a year was a learning experience for her son. He visited so many cities and countries she couldn’t remember them all.
Prosecutor Ron Zonen pressed hard, saying “Jackson took care of your travel, food and housing, gave you gifts, and by the fourth night he was sleeping with your son.” She said that Jackson told them he thought of them as family and that she is “proud of loving Michael Jackson.”
Barnes began to explain how she knew Jackson had not molested her son. She said that she’d told her boy to look her in the eyes and tell her whether Michael Jackson… Her story was stopped cold by Zonen, who’d started her down that path.
Guilt, shame and denial loomed
large in the prosecution’s questions
Prosecutors intimated all these family members may be in denial — pointing out that a family might be ridden with guilt and shame if a child had been molested.
Karlee Robson, Wade’s sister, replied “It would be a disgrace that it would happen — if it had happened.” But she said it hadn’t — her brother would have told her, adding that she loves Michael Jackson with all her heart. “He’s just a human being. Same organs, same blood…”
Karlee also provided the defense with a possible answer to why so many of the sisters of Jackson’s boy buddies left Jackson’s bed to the pop star and their brothers. “I was developing as a girl,” she said. “I wanted a little bit of privacy.” She said that her sleeping arrangements were her call.
What does she think of the child molestation charges against Jackson? “I think they’re liars,” she said.
Chantal Barnes said she’s been a Jackson friend since she was 10 years old in 1989 and considers Jackson a family member. She’d fallen asleep on Jackson’s bed with her brother Brett at least four times and was in and out of the room a lot. Does she feel guilty? “I do not,” she insisted. “It’s a normal friendship.”
The prosecution asked whether she trusted Michael Jackson not to have figurines of nude women in bondage attire on display in view of children (such figurines were shown as evidence earlier in this trial). Chantal said she did.
“Would you trust Michael Jackson to not show erotic materials to a child he’d given alcohol to?” Chantal said she thought so, but added that she was only a guest in Jackson’s home and that sometimes people have such magazines in their houses.
Mother’s Day mud-slinging
Under cross examination, Tom Sneddon brought out parallels between Joy Robson and the mother of Jackson’s 1993 accuser — both were taken by Jackson to the Mirage in Vegas in Steve Wynn’s jet (where Jackson reportedly cried and begged the mother of his ’93 accuser to let him sleep with her son) — both let their sons sleep with Jackson repeatedly over the course of years.
But Joy Robson described the mother of the ’93 accuser as “a gold-digger” who “wanted to be mistress of Neverland” and constantly issued orders to ranch hands. Tom Sneddon hit back with a charge of jealousy, pointing out Wade Robson was replaced by the ’93 accuser as Jackson’s “special friend” — a term the prosecution is using derisively these days.
Joy Robson called it nonsense. She’d seen Jackson trying to elude the mother of Jackson’s ’93 accuser at Neverland. That mother and her son settled out of court for an estimated $20 million.
Tom Sneddon seemed a bit muddled in his cross-examination of Wade Robeson’s mom — didn’t have all his facts straight, and was being prompted by his team. Ron Zonen cross-examined the other witnesses and did a far better job of probing deep without beating-up on these mums two days from Mother’s Day.
The Australians were charming, well-mannered and lugged no baggage into court — no lawsuits, and no grudges — except, perhaps, against those out to defame Michael. They were extrmely polite, too. The only reason they might not have wanted their sons and daughters sleeping with Michael Jackson? Because they did not want to impose. They were, and are, committed Jackson fans and family friends.
Tom Mesereau wrapped up each mother’s testimony with questions he knew would be axed by the judge but heard by the jury. “If your son was molested, would you first go to a lawyer to get money?” “Did you ever escape from Neverland?”
And, “Did you ever get into a hot air balloon at Neverland?” That, in reference to a claim by the mother of Michael Jackson’s current accuser who testified that death by runaway balloon was just one way Jackson’s handlers had plotted to kill her family.
Happy Mother’s Day!
Comments