Live! The Michael Jackson Trial Blog

Closing arguments Thursday, judge allows new misdemeanor alcohol charges

The tedious process of crafting jury
instructions winds down, Mesereau and
Zonen away — working on their closings

I L L U S T R A T I O N   B Y   O L L E   J O H A N S S O N

Back when Martin Bashir asked Michael Jackson whether it was appropriate for a 46-year-old man to be sleeping with children he wasn’t related to, the pop star asked in response, “Who’s the criminal? Who’s Jack the Ripper in the room?”

That’s the question jurors may begin asking one another beginning Friday — those long-suffering 8 women and 4 men who range from an 79-year-old widow to a 21-year-old cashier.

We now have a timeline.

• Wednesday. Jurors will be called in at noon. Jackson will be there, too. The judge will read the jury’s instructions and everyone will go home.
     
• Thursday. Closing arguments begin. The prosecution goes first, led by Senion Deputy District Attorney Ron Zonen, followed by defense attorney Tom Mesereau.  Prosecutors will have the final word since theirs is the burden of proof.
     
• Friday. The judge will charge the jury and send them off to begin deliberations. How soon will they return a verdict? Only they will be able to answer that question. 

Closing argument in this case is critical. This is a case that could be won or lost in closing argument. “This case so closely balanced” says Inside Edition legal analyst Jim Moret. “Each side had missteps. Each side had witnesses that flipped for the other side. It’s been a rollercoaster. Closing arguments are not evidence, but they will give jurors an opportunity to look at the last 3½ months and filter it.”

Judge allows new lesser offenses
that do not mandate jail time
They are four counts of administering an intoxicating agent to assist in the commission of a felony. (Jesus juice — and the vodka and rum Jackson is said to have given his accuser.) Each of these counts is tied specifically to molestation. The judge today said he is going to allow a lesser count of furnishing alcohol to a minor, a misdemeanor.

“The judge is basically giving the jury an out,” says Moret. “Jurors may find that Michael Jackson gave alcohol, but didn’t molest. This gives them an opportunity to find that Jackson did something wrong. It gives the jury an out, so that if they’re hung up on an issue they can go with a lesser offense that’s not a felony.

“If the prosecution didn’t prove a felony, but feel they want to give the prosecution something, jurors can go with a lesser count” says Moret.

Crafting jury instructions has been a tedious task in which lawyers have been arguing over such seemingly insignificant stuff — like whether to remove [brackets] from certain clauses.

But today, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the conviction of former accounting giant Arthur Andersen for destroying documents related to the Enron Corporation solely on the basis of poorly-written jury instructions. So there.

Tom Sneddon is being his usual gruff self, still unaware that his off-stage whispers can be heard by everyone. “You should have throught that out before you opened your mouth!” he snapped at Jerry Franklin, his chief jury-instructions architect this morning. Sneddon has to be the ultimate Boss from Hell.

By afternoon, the pressure had gotten to defense attorney Robert Sanger who said he was thankful that the proceedings were not televised because that would deter an entire generation from becoming lawyers.

Raymone Baine: No truth to published
reports Jackson "scared silly" of prison
Vanity Fair is reporting that Michael Jackson has been asking friends what life is like in jail — he believes he will be convicted of child molestation and appears to be “scared silly” over the prospect of prison. From the New York Post:

“He believes the judge, the DA and the Sony guys are [in] a conspiracy to take over his money,” said Gordon Novel, a private eye who claims Jacko hired him to give advice amid his sensational child-molestation trial.

In the heat of the trial, Jacko “acted like he was scared silly,” Novel says in an explosive interview with Vanity Fair set to hit city newsstands next week.

“He kept asking me what prison was like. Can he watch TV and movies there? He wanted me to stop the show.”

“I want this trial stopped,” a pouty Jacko demanded, spouting cries of conspiracy as the pair tooled around the star’s Neverland ranch March 17 in a beat-up pickup truck, with Jackson at the wheel, according to Novel.

We talked with Jackson spokesperson Raymone Baine a few minutes ago and she categorically denied the reports.

Where is everybody?
More media, fewer lawyers
Senior Deputy District Attorney Ron Zonen and Jackson chief defense attorney Tom Mesreau are missing from the courtroom, along with Jackson who was not required to be here today. Zonen and Mesreau are likely off working on their closing arguments. Jackson? Anyone’s guess what he’s up to today.

More and more media trucks and reporters continue to trickle into town as a verdict nears — the “star” reporters who couldn’t hack being here nonstop from Day One. Jackson fans plan a “Vigil for Victory” here tomorrow, and Wednesday evening they will welcome Jackson back to Neverland by lining up along Figueroa Mountain Road holding a chain of hearts sent in by fans around the world. Awwww.

Welcome to postmodern justice
My favorite take on the trial today comes from Manchester University’s professor Terry Eagleton, who writes today in the Gulf Times...

“Courtrooms, like novels, blur the distinction between fact and fiction. They are self-enclosed spheres in which what matters is not so much what actually took place in the real world, but how it gets presented to the jury. The jury judge not on the facts, but between rival versions of them. Since postmodernists believe that there are no facts in any case, just interpretations, law courts neatly exemplify their view of the world.

“Another thing which blurs the distinction between fact and fiction is Michael Jackson himself. There is a double unreality about staging the fiction of a criminal trial around a figure who has been assembled by cosmetic surgeons. Jackson’s freakish body represents the struggle of fantasy against reality, the pyrrhic victory of culture over biology.”

Fresh crop of Jesus juice ripening
on vines in the Santa Maria Valley

Meantime, a few miles from the media frenzy of Michael Jackson’s trial, life goes on. Tiny grapes are beginning to form on zillions of vines growing on thousands of acres of in the Santa Maria and Santa Ynez valleys. Some 90 wineries are here in the picturesque country celebrated in the Oscar-nominated movie “Sideways.” Here are a couple of pix I snapped yesterday, prowling around the countryside where the top three varieties are Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Cabernet Sauvignon.

Oops. I’m sounding like a flack for the Santa Maria Chamber of Commerce. Sorry, but the wines produced here are that good. 

 

Prosecution and defense rest following powerful video interview of Jackson's accuser

In a surprise ending, Jackson's defense calls
no surrebuttal witnesses. The case closes
affter accuser details molestation on tape

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

Michael Jackson's accuser had the last word in the pop star’s trial. His claims of multiple molestations by Jackson were heard by jurors in a 2003 videotaped interview conducted by Santa Barbara County sheriff’s deputies Paul Zelus and Steve Robel.

The tape ran an hour and four minutes. Turns out it had not been edited as the judge had requested on Thursday.

“You just sit right there, buddy,” began the detectives. “You’ve been through a lot. We know what we’re doing here — we’re going to try our best to make a criminal case… once you get this stuff off your chest, you’ll feel better.”

After promising the boy that no one would ever know about anything he was about to say on this tape, and making small talk about sports to put the clearly nervous boy at some ease, detectives asked the key question.

"Has Michael Jackson ever
touched you inappropriately...

...made you feel embarrassed or angry because of what he’s done to you?” The boy began by saying Jackson had told him that boys who do not masturbate would go crazy — how a boy who didn’t masturbate wound up having sex with a dog.

“He said he wanted to show me how to masturbate,” said the boy, “and I said no. He said he’d do it for me. He said — he grabbed me — yeah, in my private area.”

“He told me — that — if I knew how to do it,” said the boy haltingly, sniffling, wiping his nose with his fingers and lapsing into some 20 seconds of silence before continuing softly. “He put his hand in my pants and he started masturbating me. I told him I didn’t want to do it. He kept doing it.” Jackson, according to the boy, kept saying, “It’s okay, it’s natural.”

It happened in Jackson’s bed, said the boy. Both he and Jackson were wearing pajamas.

“Did you get an erection? From doing that?” The boy nodded yes. “Did he (Jackson) do anything to himself?” The boy shook his head, no. “Did white stuff come out?” asked a deputy. “I don’t really know,” said the boy, “I didn't see.”

Did Jackson ever do it again? “Every time my little brother wasn’t there,” said the boy, eyes downcast, slumped in his chair. “My brother felt like Michael didn’t want him to stay with him” (in the pop star’s bedroom). How often did it happen? The boy said it was maybe five times.

The boy added that on one occasion, Jackson pulled the boy’s hand toward his own crotch. The boy said he pulled his hand away.

“Anything else?” asked a deputy. “He tried to kiss me on my lips once,” said Jackson’s accuser. “I pushed him away.” The boy added that Jackson had kissed him on his head, and on his cheek — pointing to a spot near his mouth. “He would hug me, kiss me a lot on my head. That was about it.”

“Does Michael Jackson still consider you his friend?” The boy just shrugged.

"He was gonna put me
in movies and stuff."

Jackson’s accuser told of the making of Martin Bashir’s documentary Living With Michael Jackson that touched off the worldwide firestorm that ultimately led to this trial.

The boy said Jackson had taken him aside just before tape rolled on that infamous hand-holding scene. “He wanted to make me a movie star. This was gonna be my audition. He was gonna put me in movies and stuff.”

According to the boy, Jackson told him to tell Bashir on camera that the pop star had helped cure the boy’s cancer. “He was telling me what to say.”

Accuser says Jackson gave him wine
every day — vodka and rum, too

The boy told essentially the same story on tape that he told on the stand in mid-March, including an account of Jackson giving him wine, first in a Miami hotel room. “He (said) he’s got something that could relax me,” said the boy, explaining how Jackson said he knew the boy was “stressed out” over the Bashir furor. He said Jackson emptied a Diet Coke can and filled it with wine.

“Drink it,” the boy said Jackson told him. The boy said he asked Jackson what it was. “It’s wine. Just drink it,” he quoted Jackson as saying. “He just kept saying ‘drink it, drink it.’ I didn’t like the taste... My head started hurting and stuff.”

On their flight back to Santa Barbara from Miami, the boy said Jackson had given him a watch Jackson claimed was worth $75,000 in exchange for the boy’s promise not to tell anyone about the wine.

“Did he give you wine a lot?” asked detectives. “Every day,” said the boy. “There was other stuff too. Sky Vodka, Bacardi.”

“What he did to you is wrong,” said a detective. “We will try our best to investigate this... You’ve been through hell.”

There were a few inconsistencies. The boy said he’d never revealed details of his molestation to anyone before meeting with the officers. On the stand, the boy’s sister claimed he’d told her. During his testimony, the boy said he wanted to stay at Neverland. On tape, he said he was scared Jackson aides would kill his family.

But these were minor variations. The final image left in jurors’ minds after 136 witnesses have appeared before them is that of the prime witnesses, a nervous teenage boy, his voice cracking with emotion, reiterating his charges. This far-ranging trial had returned to its ground-zero.

When the courtroom lights came up, jurors were seen sitting stone-faced, looking down. Michael’s mother Katherine Jackson sat through the tape with her eyes down.

A quick cross-examination,
then a surprising close

Defense attorney Robert Sanger had only a few questions for Sheriff’s detective Steve Robel. Whose sniffling was heard on the tape’s soundtrack? Was it the boy, choking back tears? Or a detective with a cold? Seems to have been a little of each.

Sanger zeroed-in on the boy’s telling detectives that he didn’t know what an erection is. Sanger pointing out how unlikely that might be for a 13-year-old boy.

But after Sanger said that he had no further questions, prosecutors rested their case. After a brief huddle at the defense table, Jackson attorney Tom Mesereau stood, faced the judge, and said, “Your honor, the defense rests.”

It was over.

What's the impact?
Why no surrebuttal witnesses?

A nearly unanimous consensus here that this was a powerful, if not devastating way to close the four-month trial of Michael Jackson. Inside Edition legal analyst Jim Moret said, “It’s unfortunate for the defense that this ended on a Friday for a four-day weekend for the jury, and the last thing they will see is this videotape because it very well could have disturbed many of the jurors.

“This looked like a boy who was embarrassed, this looked a boy who had to be coaxed, this looked like a boy didn't want to speak up — who was shy.”

And so rests the evidence portion of this trial with something of a courtroom shocker. The defense has been saying for days that if the tape was played, they intended to recall the boy, his mother, his psychologist and attorney.

Why weren’t surrebuttal witnesses called? Former prosecutor Susan Filan said, “What you saw was a great chess move by the prosecution to get this video in as its last witness and a better chess move by the defense to end it right there.

“What the defense did was basically say, ‘Dismiss it. I’m not going to dignify it with a response. I’ve so thoroughly impeached this boy though my cross-exam and defense witnesses I don’t even need to go there. I’m over — game done.’”

Jackson left the courthouse without saying a word — and carrying his own umbrella for only the second time since this trial began.

A cliffhanger trial nears its
crucial closing arguments

On Tuesday, prosecution and defense attorneys will argue over the all-important instructions Judge Rodney Melville will give jurors. Then, the even more critical closing arguments.

“This case will be won or lost in its closing arguments,” says Filan. “This case has been such a ping-pong match. Witness after witness has flipped and flopped us. Now, each side has to put its total case together and let the jury see it in full.”

There are unconfirmed reports here at the courthouse that the judge will limit each side to three hours of closing arguments to be delivered by prosecutor Ron Zonen and defense attorney Tom Mesereau. The jury could begin its deliberations by Wednesday.

   

Jackson's accuser coming back — on tape, and live? No close-up stills of Jackson's body parts.

An interview with Jackson's accuser
will be screened by jurors. Will the
boy appear as a more credible witness?

Jurors will get a second chance to get personal with Michael Jackson’s accuser, but they won’t be seeing photos of the pop star’s penis up close.

Photos of Jackson’s genitalia would have been flashed on the courtroom’s big-screen projector if the D.A. had gotten his way — along with drawings of the pop star’s private parts made for policeby his 1993 accuser.

The jury has been spared from an anatomical compare and contrast session, and Jackson is spared the another round of the humiliation he endured when deputies told him to strip, turn left, turn right — and lift. Prosecutors wanted the jury to see “unique features of Michael Jackson’s anatomy.”

The defense called it an “unfair surprise,” and “dramatic evidence late in the trial.” They argued that the prosecution’s claim the images rebutted statements that Jackson was shy and modest were groundless, and Judge Rodney Melville agreed.

“I will deny the request to bring in evidence of the blemished penis,” he said.

But Melville did allow videotape of a police interview with Jackson’s current accuser to be shown, perhaps tomorrow.

Accuser said to appear shy, vulnerable
telling deputies of being molested

“It’s a very significant victory for the prosecution,” said former prosecutor Susan Filan, “because the accuser’s credibility has been undermined and attacked both through cross-exam and through defense witnesses. This is going to refocus us back on track and put Michael Jackson back on trial.”

After weeks of  witnesses, the clear villain in the defense case has been the accuser’s mother (her booking photo from the J.C. Penney incident at left) who has been easy to pick apart for a wealth of reasons — from her unpredictable mood swings and body wax claims to her fairly clear-cut case of welfare fraud. Her son wasn’t that great a witness, either.

“Oddly enough, even though he survived cancer, he wasn’t overly sympathetic,” says Inside Edition legal analyst Jim Moret. “He didn’t break down on the stand. Presumably, he showed more emotion in this interview and I think that’s why the prosecution wants to bring it in.”

The tape was in post-production right today. The judge called it “awfully long” at an hour in length, and said that he’d like to see it cut in length by half. So a deputy D.A. and a representative of the defense team have been working on trimming down the tape. The defense isn’t at all happy.

They can’t cross-examine videotape — and the last thing they want is sympathy for the accuser — especially after Chris Tucker wrapped up their case yesterday by portraying the kid as a “schemer.” So the defense said that if the D.A. shows this tape, they plan to recall the boy, his mother, his psychologist and his lawyer.

“This certainly would extend the case if they do recall the four witnesses they intend to call: the accuser, the accuser’s mother, Dr. Katz and attorney Feldman. However, this may be bluff and posturing.”

Does the defense really want to risk a better live performance by the accuser than he made back in mid-March? If he is recalled, defense attorney Tom Mesereau will have to destroy the boy on the stand, and that risks alienating the jury. Certainly it would be different, putting the boy’s mother on the stand. She would be all too easy to undo.

“But attacking the mom doesn’t necessarily mean the boy is lying, and that’s really what the prosecution wants the jury to remember. Yes, the mom may be crazy, that doesn’t mean he wasn’t molested. That’s the question for the jury.”

Meantime, it’s a hearts-and-minds battle for defense attorneys and prosecutors, each of whom want to leave one last image burned into the jurors brains.

 

 

Defense rests with testimony by Chris Tucker, Sneddon drops a bomb

Michael Jackson does not take the
stand as his trial nears an end

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

At 10:53am, Tom Mesereau turned to the judge and said, “Your honor, the defense rests. Jurors just looked at one another. Make of that what you will. Were they perhaps expecting Jackson?

The defense had finished with witness #50. The prosecution called 85 — 135 witnesses in all since March 2 when Martin Bashir took the stand. It was his documentary “Living with Michael Jackson” that set off a firestorm of controversy that ultimately triggered this trial — and its allegations that Michael Jackson gave alcohol to his young accuser, molested the boy — and conspired to hold the accuser and his family against their will.

The defense ended on a strong note with Chris Tucker — star of the “Rush Hour” movies — who said he’d become suspicious of Jackson’s accuser and his family after taking the cancer-stricken boy under his wing — even wiring money into his family’s bank account after the boy said that a fundraiser at The Laugh Factory had failed to raise any cash.

Tucker flew the family to Florida in a chartered jet to meet Jackson within days of the American premiere of Bashir’s documentary where he warned Jackson to steer clear of them. “He was worried that they were looking for money, looking for ways to basically take advantage of Michael Jackson and he warned Michael Jackson about that.”

Tucker builds on the defense theme:
The accuser's family as grifters
Tucker called the young accuser “cunning and smart,” and wondered whether the boy and his father were working like a tag team to tap Tucker for money.

Tucker said his suspicions about the family set in when the family came to the set of a movie he was filming in Las Vegas, but refused to leave for weeks. The family, he said, wanted Tucker to rent them a room at his hotel, one equal to the star’s digs.

Tucker realized he had to wean himself away from the family after giving them the keys to a truck once used by former fiancée Azja Pryor to the boy’s mom. Tucker said the mom began to cry — and shake — “like she was possessed.” Tucker was convinced, “something ain’t right.” Tucker said he was relieved when the mother lost the truck’s keys in Miami and never took possession of the vehicle, though the kids had bugged Pryor about it for weeks.

“Were they taking advantage of you?” asked defense attorney Tom Mesereau?  Tucker saying — That’s what it looked like — I was hoping they weren’t.”

He said those worries were underscored when the accuser’s brother told him, “You’ve got too much stuff — you don’t need this much stuff.” Tucker said he was almost tempted to check the boy’s pockets before he left Tucker’s home on visits. 

Tucker said he continued to be nice, but “I tried to wean myself away.”

Unshakable in cross-examination, Tucker
comes off as as biased witness testifying
on behalf of a friend

Cross examination by District Attorney Tom Sneddon was often contentious, Sneddon ridiculing Tucker for not remembering the year of his brother’s marriage or the year the sequel “Rush Hour” was filmed.

That first question prompted Sneddon to show Tucker a photo taken at the wedding. Sneddon contended Tucker had invited the accuser and his family to attend. Tucker claimed they family had invited themselves.

No wisecracks, no playing for laughs

“When Chris Tucker said, ‘I’d like to have that photograph!’ it was the only funny thing he said,” commented former prosecutor Susan Filan. “The D.A.’s response to that was, ‘Maybe if you’re a good boy.’”

That “boy” crack set off political correctness alarm bell in the media pool.

“It clearly seemed that Tucker was biased for the defense,” said former prosecutor Susan Filan. “He was testifying for his friend Michael Jackson.” It seemed clear that Tucker would say little, if anything, harmful to Jackson. There were, for instance, lots of memory lapses by Tucker. Still, it was the strong finish the defense had been hoping to score.

How’s former prosecutor Filan sum things up so far? “The defense has done a pretty good job of poking holes in the prosecution’s case. They’ve certainly undermined the credibility of the accuser’s mother — and now, they’ve undermined the credibility of the accused himself — and this is a credibility case.”

The last time Tucker made contact with Jackson’s accuser? A year ago. Tucker came across the boy’s number in a notebook and dialed it to see if it was still working. “Hey Chris!” said the boy, overjoyed to hear from his movie star buddy. “Hey!” Chris replied. Then Tucker heard a loud voice “screaming in the background, ‘Get off that phone — now!’ It was Janet.” The line clicked into silence. Tucker and the boy haven’t spoken since.

D.A. Tom Sneddon pulls last-minute rabbit
out of his hat: videotape of the accuser

The jury spent the afternoon hearing rebuttal witnesses. A Neverland worker who said he saw Jackson intoxicated in front of kids. Under cross, the same witness admitted he’d been intoxicated in front of his own children. That kind of thing.

Then the bombshell: Sneddon saying he wants to play for the jury a one-hour videotape of the accuser's first interview with police in 2003 — to rebut defense witnesses, he says.

Jackson’s defense team jumped to their feet, crying foul. Play the tape and we bring the accuser back to the stand, they said. But was it an empty threat?

Sneddon may only be looking to keep memory of the boy’s face in front of jurors in a trial that’s focused on the boy’s mother in its defense phase. The defense would rather keep things that way, and if they brought back the boy, would have to be sure they could discredit him. Risky business.

The judge adjourned proceedings early to watch the video and may rule in the morning. Former prosecutor Filan says it’s up to the judge to decide whether the tape is legitimate rebuttal evidence, or simply evidence that in hindsight the prosecution wishes it had played.

What’s on that tape? We’ve not seen it, but from the testimony of deputies, we suspect it’s the boy denying that he was molested. It would counter Tucker’s “schemer” testimony and the prosecution would certainly make the point that, of course, a teenage boy would be loathe to tell a couple of cops that he had been a victim of sexual abuse.

That would make an exceptionally strong, sympathetic closing statement for prosecutors.

Final defense witness Chris Tucker takes the stand, Leno bombs for Jackson, Case to jury next week?

It's official: Michael Jackson will
not testify in his own behalf

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

Chris Tucker took the stand in the final half hour of court today. He will be the final defense witness says attorney Tom Mesereau — ending weeks of wondering whether Jackson himself would face the jury — and stand up to prosecutors who have been trying for more than a decade to put him behind bars.

Nothing significant yet in his testimony, the “Rush Hour” star is just starting to lay out the story of how he met Michael Jackson’s accuser through the Laugh Factory. How he took the boy, his brother and sister to Knott’s Berry Farm and took them shopping for clothes, how they visited him on a movie set in Vegas, and how they became close. It’s how Tucker met Michael Jackson — through Jackson’s young accuser.

But since Tucker is the final defense witness, there’s a lot riding on his testimony. The defense has to be hoping he’ll be a stronger witness tomorrow morning than Jay Leno was this morning.

Tonight Show host denies claims
that he was a shakedown target by
the accuser and his mother

It wasn’t the testimony the defense expected to hear. Jay Leno said he spoke to Michael Jackson’s accuser while the boy was in the hospital fighting cancer. He also spoke to the boy’s mother, but was never asked for money. He did send the boy a picture and a hat.

The only thing that made repeated phone messages from the boy out of the ordinary was the praise the boy heaped on the comedian. “It was a little unusual,” said Leno, “I’m not Batman.” But Leno went on to explain that the messages made sense once fellow comedian Louisa Palanker told him the boy wanted to be a comic.

Leno said he received several voice mail messages from Jackson’s accuser, but they stopped after Leno expressed concern to Palanker who apparently tipped off the boy’s mom.

There were some inconsistencies. The mother testified that she never spoke to Leno. So did her son, when he was on the stand. That casts some doubt on their testimony. Still, Leno testified that the boy was groggy and out of it when they spoke by phone. The cancer patient was in his hospital bed, possible medicated. Gawker has what it says is a transcript of that call that seems to bear out Leno’s claim.

Leno scored some laughs with his imitations of kids’ voices in his half-hour appearance, and quipped as he left the stand that tonight’s special guest would be Renée Zellweger. When welcomed to Santa Maria by prosecutor Ron Zonen, Leno replied in his trademark on-air style, “Why, thank you. It’s a lovely town.”

But Leno did not deliver a knockout punch-line for Jackson’s defense claims that Leno was a target for a shakedown by a mom on the make. To the contrary, he exonerated the accuser’s mom who’s been the prime target as the defense wraps up its case.

The defense was clearly caught off guard by Leno as he explained away the indicators that he would be a perfect defense witness. According to ABC News, Leno told sheriff’s investigators that the boy’s messages sounded coached. On the stand, Leno waived it off by saying that comedian Louise Palanker told him the boy wrote everything out first.

Leno also reportedly told detectives, that the mother and son were “essentially, sort of looking for money.” Leno said on the stand that they never asked for anything.

And how do you explain the same published reports of Leno telling deputies, “Even though I think Michael Jackson is guilty, I still went, ‘Boy, they finally found a mark’”?

It’s a mystery. But it left some wondering why Leno was called to testify.

More mom-bashing raises more questions
about that J.C. Penney case

Paralegal Mary Holzer worked for the law firm handling the lawsuit the accuser’s mom launched against J.C. Penney for false imprisonment and sexual abuse that led to a $150,000 cash settlement for the accuser’s family. The mom got $32,000, her husband declined any part of the winnings.

Holzer testified that the charges were fake — that she’d been told by the accuser’s mother that her bruises had been inflicted by her husband after they left the Penney parking lot where the mom said guards had belly-flopped on her, and pinched her breasts and twisted her head around “like The Exorcist.”

Holzer testified that the dad was angry with his wife for triggering the incident.

Moreover, Holzer said the mom coached her kids as to what to say in court, saying the mother was worried that one of her sons wouldn’t get his story straight — saying she wanted them to be good actors to she could tell them what to say.  Holzer also said the mom laid down some heavy-duty intimidation  — saying she was worried that her husband’s brother in the Mexican mafia would take out Holzer and her daughter.

Jackson fate in jurors' hands
sometime next week?
So when’s this case get handed to the jury? Tom Sneddon says he’s prepared to start calling a 2-day list of rebuttal witnesses as soon as Tucker as soon as Tucker leaves the stand tomorrow. Once we’ve been through sur-rebuttal witnesses and arguments over jury instructions, the case could go to jurors by the end of next week.

Accuser’s mom totally trashed, “Evil Germans” speak, Pandas invade Santa Maria

A three-round bout ending in
a knockout blow to mom’s credibility

I L L U S T R A T I O N S   ©  2  0  0  5   B Y   B I L L   R O B L E S

ROUND ONE: Welfare Fraud.  The defense pretty much proved its allegation that the accuser’s mother fraudulently applied for welfare after her family received a $150,000 settlement from a J.C. Penney civil suit — while she was living with her fiancée — and had health insurance — and was living off the fat of the Neverland.

Still, when the mom filed for welfare, food stamps and MediCal in 2001, and renewed her claim a year later, she mentioned none of this in a statement she signed under oath. Nor did she indicate it on interim reports filed monthly or quarterly. This, from Mercy Dee Manrriquez, the mother’s case worker at the Los Angeles County Department of Social Services.

Looks like a clear-cut case of welfare fraud. The mom pleaded the Fifth Amendment, refusing to deal with the issues when she testified. The prosecution admitted much when it said on the first day of her testimony that they were “not terribly interested in giving (the mother) immunity.”

Earlier in the day, forensic accountant Mike Radakovich traced the mom’s $32,308 personal share of the settlement check straight into her Washington Mutual bank account. Just one of several probably-fraudulent answers on the mother’s welfare form: Has anyone received payment from, among other things, court settlements? The mom ticked off the  “No” box. 

We don't need your f****** blood

ROUND TWO: The accuser’s aunt, saying that when she learned that her nephew had cancer, she organized a blood drive for the boy. She worked at Vons, as did the boy’s father. So she talked it up among the grocery store employees where 25 to 30 people at the warehouse were ready to roll up their sleeves for a second blood drive.

But when the mom learned of it, the aunt said she was shot down. The accuser’s mother saying, “We don’t need your f****** blood. What I want is money.”

The aunt was on and off the stand in ten minutes after saying she had not been in touch with the boy’s father for some 15 years. The prosecution knew when to fold. 

ROUND THREE: Connie Keenan, editor of the Mid-Valley News, published in El Monte. The accuser’s mother repeatedly called the paper, lobbying for a news story about her cancer-ridden son. The editor saying the accuser’s mother “played on some sympathy in our office.”

According to Keenan, the mom told the paper’s reporter that the boy’s chemotherapy shots cost $12,000. When the mom was on the stand, she testified that the reporter got the story wrong. Keenan stood by her story, saying the reporter had the mother saying it on tape. Turns out the shots cost $1,200 — but the mother never told the reporter that all her son’s cancer costs were covered by insurance.

When asked under cross-examination what happened when the mom called the editor three months later, asking for another story because the first one didn’t raise enough money, the editor said with a sharp edge, “The length of that call was approximately one minute minute, twenty seconds.” Why? “I had already established that I had been duped,” said Keenan.

Scrooged: Christmas turkey greeted
with little thanks by the mom
Then came the story of how Keenan’s fledgling reporter who wrote the boy’s story felt so badly for the accuser’s family that she took a personally cooked Christmas turkey and brought it to their home where instead of thanks the mom told her she would rather have money than the food.

The reporter was crushed, though the editor’s version of her story seems at odds with what the reporter has previously told investigators. Could the reporter be called as a rebuttal witness? Or can the prosecution walk away from defending the mom and refocus on the molestation charges by her son? Or has the mother’s testimony fatally flawed his testimony, too?

It was a frustrating day for Tom Sneddon who’s losing it with greater frequency. When Keenan gave him a sharp answer during a cross in which the D.A. accused the editor of sloppy journalism by not researching the story deeply enough (there are three people on the staff of the News), Sneddon scolded the witness for being rude.

Michael Cardoza, a former prosecutor from Alameda County California said “I’ll tell ya, that didn’t look good to the jury or anyone else in the audience. You’re seeing the prosecutors lose their cool. Mr. Sneddon’s too good a trial attorney to call a witness ‘rude.’ He knows better than that, but I think it shows his frustration with the way this case is going. The wheels are falling off.”

Overzealous prosecution?
If there’s a hung jury on the molestation charges, would Santa Barbara County try the case again? Cardoza says,  “If it’s 11 to 1 for guilty, they probably will retry. 11 to 1 for innocent, they probably won’t — and take that back both ways. At some point they have to cut their losses and look to the community that’s actually footing the bill for this trial in making their decision.

“Keep in mind that Mr. Sneddon won’t be the district attorney in this county at that time” says Carzoda. “It’s become a little bit apparent to me that (Sneddon) is certainly vested in this case, certainly much more so than a district attorney should be.”

Defense accusations of overzealous prosecution by Sneddon are back, and ringing in the ears of many people who didn’t see it that way when this trial began.

 
Konitzer, Wiesner wave off conspiracy charges
they say were cooked up by Tom Sneddon

The interview took place over the weekend in Vancouver where unindicted co-conspirator Ronald Konitzer is now living with his wife and three kids. Fellow Neverland insider Dieter Wiesner joined in by teleconference from Germany.

Konizer and Wiesner were as close to Jackson as anyone could get in happier days at Neverland. They were busy working on their 10-year-plan to revitalize the pop star’s career — one that would have seen Jackson in film and animation, not as a musical stage performer.

This may be the last time the men closest to Jackson at the time of the Bashir bombshell will be heard before the defense rests. What they said casts even greater doubt on the prosecution’s conspiracy charges which Konitzer says is simply the product of D.A. Tom Sneddon’s fertile imagination.

As far as holding the accuser and his family hostage, Konitzer said just the opposite was true. After the Bashir documentary, he and Wiesner tried to get the mother off the ranch, but she kept coming back.

Their theory: Once Jackson distanced himself from the mom, she hatched a plot to get revenge on Michael. Konitzwer and Wiesner said they had their hands full trying to stamp out the firestorm from Bashir’s Living With Michael Jackson smear-job. The mom figured as little more than an annoyance, hardly a threat.

The “evil Germans” — as the mother called them, said they never knew about the surveillance on the mother. And that makes sense. Rolling videotape on the family was then-Jackson lawyer Mark Geragos’ doing with his hired private investigator Brad Miller.

And they never knew about the Brazil trip, either. That too makes sense. That piece of the “conspiracy” seems to have been handled by Mark Schaffel who had contracts in Brazil from his days of shooting porn movies there.

So if the Germans never knew about the surveillance, false imprisonment and exile to Brazil, how could there have possibly been a conspiracy? The prosecution’s theory that Konitzer, Wiesner and Schaffel — aided by fellow unindicted co-conspirators Vinnie Amen and Frank Tyson simply doesn’t work if you take the Germans at their word.

Waiting for the prosecution to call...
Here’s the clincher: Did Tom Sneddon bother to check out the Germans’ story before launching conspiracy charges against Jackson? No, say Konitzer and Wiesner. Konitzer got a phone call from lead Santa Barbara County investigator Detective Paul Zelis, and Konitzer returned the phone call. Zelis wasn’t in, Konitzer left a message, and even though Zelis had Konitzer’s phone number and address, he never bothered to call back.

The prosecution forged ahead with their conspiracy theory — without ever talking to at least two of the alleged conspirators.

When did Konitzer and Wiesner leave the Jackson camp? After Jackson’s brother Randy brought in the Nation of Islam to run Jackson’s affairs. Suddenly, Michael was unavailable to the two men. Today, Konitzer describes himself as an entrepreneur, Wiesner says he is back in the merchandising biz.

Pandas everywhere as
trial takes on bear facts

The Jackson trial is no longer un-bear-able. No less than 10 dudes and babes in panda bear costumes joined Jackson fans outside the courthouse waiting for Michael to arrive this morning.

Just a stunt by a Los Angeles radio station, but unlike the woman handing out veggieburgers here last week, wearing only a lettuce leaf bikini, they brought no food for starving reporters.

The pandas seemed split in their decision. One carried a sign reading, “GUILTY!” Another, “Michael petted me and I liked it.” Still, if you thought the madness of this trial had settled into complacency, you're just wrong, bud.

Judge may levy sanctions against Mesereau. Geragos can't explain missing passports. An early end to this trial?

Mesereau takes a credibility hit for late
disclosure of Geragos testimony deal

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

“I feel deceived by Mr. Mesereau,” said Judge Rodney Melville — clearly angered, but without losing his soft-spoken, folksy cool — “and I am considering sanctions of some sort against Mr. Mesereau.”

It’s all about that attorney-client privilege waiver between Michael Jackson and Mark Geragos in order to admit the testimony of Jackson’s former lawyer.

Details of the waiver were not revealed until Geragos was well into cross-examination last Friday. It allows Geragos to testify only about events that took place from the time he was hired by Jackson until the time of Jackson’s arrest — that’s highly unusual. Most privilege waivers are unconditional. Some may cover certain topics, but none of our legal experts have heard of a waiver that covers a time span.

Rather than throw out Geragos’ testimony and possibly damage Jackson’s case, the judge went along with the waiver, reluctantly. Perhaps, like the prosecution, feeling as though Mesereau had pulled a fast one.

The judge will decide later on whether to impose sanctions against Jackson’s attorney. For now, the threat is hanging over Mesereau’s head. If the judge imposes a fine of more than $1,000, the offense will find its way to Mesereau’s permanent record at the California Bar.

It’s a serious charge says Former prosecutor Susan Filan. “All you have as a trial lawyer is your reputation and your word, and once the word gets out that a judge can’t rely on your representation in court, you’re done.”

Missing passports, thrown stones.
Geragos defends surveillance.

Geragos did testify today, and invoked the waiver three times under tough grilling by prosecutor Ron Zonen who couldn’t understand why Geragos had the family’s passports locked away in his evidence cabinet for 16 months — and somehow never knew it. The passports could have been used as leverage to keep the family seeing things Jackson’s way.

Geragos sketched out the evidence trail, saying the passports, which the family obtained for their aborted trip to Brazil, were in the possession of Jackson associate Vinnie Amen before they were picked up by a man named Asef who worked for Geragos’ private investigator Bradley Miller, an independent contractor.

Prosecutor Ron Zonen made it sound extremely suspicious. The passports were brought to Geragos’ office and placed in a blank manila envelope under lock and key in Geragos’ evidence locker where they sat for over a year. Geragos said he tried, but could not learn which of his staff had logged them in.

The passports were later turned over to Judge Melville’s clerk. Geragos thought they may have had value as evidence, citing that as the reason he did not give them to Mesereau.

Geragos defended his surveillance of the accuser’s family as he did last Friday by saying he feared they would sell their story to the tabloids or seek out an attorney to sue Jackson. That’s why he brought Miller on board.

“You didn’t want to sit in a car in East L.A. and watch them?” Zonen asked Geragos with no small degree of sarcasm. “I didn’t tell them to sit in a car,” said Geragos. “I didn’t tell (Miller) what to do.”

Geragos falls on his sword for Jackson,
Puts lots of blame on private eye Miller

It was Geragos’ theme of the day: placing distance between himself, Jackson, and Miller — whose hired hand Johnny Mejitich is said to have thrown rocks at the home of the accuser’s grandparents in El Monte. “I don’t send people out to throw stones at people’s houses,” insisted Geragos.

But why would Geragos approve a plan by Miller to move the belongings of the accuser’s family into storage when the mom and her kids were clearly a loaded gun? 

“You still had the opportunity to tell Brad Miller, ‘What, are you nuts?’” said Zonen. ‘‘Don’t do anything for the (accuser’s family).’”

“No, no. On the contrary,” Geragos insisted “I wanted to know what she was up to. I didn't want him to lose track of (the accuser’s mother) because sooner or later, she’d be in the hands of a lawyer, go to a psychiatrist, and all of a sudden we’d get a false accusation.”

It’s a key point. Geragos insists the mother wanted to put her family’s belongings in storage because she was moving in with her new boyfriend, the Army major. The mom claims they were stolen as post of the alleged false imprisonment plot. She says Geragos would not surrender her stuff despite a batch of letters of demand sent to Geragos by then-family attorney Bill Dickerman. Geragos has written off Dickerman as a flake, but why would Miller personally pick up the storage tab? That was never fully explained.

The prosecution, though hobbled by the limited testimony deal, did its best to suggest Geragos was in on the conspiracy. Remains to be seen how much of that premise sticks with the jury.

Geragos may still be recalled, a real possibility now that the judge has ruled that hard drives from Miller’s computer can be admitted into evidence. The defense has until 5pm Saturday to produce them. They’re said to hold email messages to and from key Jackson aides, and the prosecution’s been trying to get the drives into evidence in this trial since its beginning.

So when will this trial end?
Soon, prosecutors said today

As court ended for the day, prosecutor Ron Zonen told the judge “the defense has indicated it may be prepared to rest by Tuesday.” That forecast may be a little optimistic, though maybe not by much.

Here is the media pool forecast: The people’s rebuttal case might be as short as two days, the defense rebuttal equally brief. Then, a day or two of discussion over jury instructions followed by closing arguments.

The case could go to the jury by early June. Mesereau told the judge this week that he would close sooner than expected after scaling back his witness list. Character witnesses were the first to go after a ruling by the judge that the prosecution could call rebuttal witnesses to counter their testimony.

Still ahead, Tonight Show host Jay Leno who’s expected to testify Tuesday morning. Comedian Chris Tucker is scheduled to take the stand this coming week.

One witness not likely to testify is Jackson associate Vinnie Amen who had been granted use immunity for four hours’ worth of questioning by the prosecution last year before D.A. Tom Sneddon decided not to call Amen to the stand. The defense claims Amen would have exonerated Jackson and wanted the same no-harm, no foul-deal.

Today, the judge did not extend that immunity to Amen’s possible courtroom appearance for the defense. Amen could still testify, and could also plead the Fifth, though sources say Amen’s not likely to testify at all.

That’s too bad. He’s the only unindicted co-conspirator who might have testified in Jackson’s trial. His view from Neverland’s inner circle would have been fascinating. But could there be a gut-spill to the media by “evil German” Ronald Konitzer, one of Jackson’s closest managers? Yeah! He’s in Vancouver right now. Watch this space!

Larry King testimony deemed irrelevant, Azja Pryor kills with kindness, a virtual tour of Neverland

King takes stand to preview his testimony,
but the jury is out of the courtroom.

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

CNN talk show host Larry King has come and gone from the Santa Maria Courthouse without testifying in Michael Jackson’s trial.

In a hearing with the jury out of the courtroom, King spoke of meeting last year with attorney Larry Feldman who represents the accuser’s family. It happened at Nate & Al’s Deli in Beverly Hills. Feldman was looking to become a regular on King’s talk show.

According to King, Feldman said that the accuser’s mother was “a wacko” and thought she was out for money. He told King that he thought the 1993 charges against Jackson were a good case, but did not want to represent Jackson’s current accuser. Under oath, earlier in this trial, Feldman denied ever saying such things.

Feldman, according to King, had briefed “the authorities” on his assessment of the accuser’s family — but did not say whether those authorities were in Santa Barbara or Los Angeles County.

It would have been powerful defense testimony, but Judge Melville ruled that he saw no reason to allow King to testify, saying King would not impeach attorney Larry Feldman — who has testified that he found no reason to doubt the credibility of the accuser’s mother. And all of what King had been told was Feldman’s impression of his client. That makes the testimony merely opinion — and thus, inadmissable.

Chris Tucker's ex-girlfriend kills
cospiracy charges with kindness

The defense moved on with Azja Pryor who became close friends with the accuser’s family and loves them still, even though they haven’t been in touch since March 2003.

“It’s hard for me, I really do love the kids a lot,” said Pryor, overcome with emotion and dabbing her eyes with tissues as defense attorney Tom Sneddon led her through her testimony.

D.A. Tom Sneddon seemed almost gleeful that Pryor was on the edge of tears, whispering to his associates loud enough to be heard on the courtroom’s audio system, “That makes my cross (examination) all the better!”

Former prosecutor Susan Filan said of Pryor, “She’s pretty much as close as you’ll get to the perfect witness. He’s humble, she’s honest, she’s precise and she’s doing a yeoman’s job at taking apart the conspiracy charge against Michael Jackson.”

Pryor said the mother wanted to go to Brazil — it was going to be a Carnivale holiday. The mother even asked Pryor to come along.

During the score of phone conversations she’d had with the mom had she ever mentioned that she was being held against her will? Extorted to make an exonerating video of Jackson? Was there ever a conspiracy by Michael Jackson to commit crimes against the accuser’s family? “Absolutely not,” said Pryor.

Had the mother ever talked about escaping from Neverland? “It’s Neverland,” said Pryor, “I don’t know why anybody would want to escape from Neverland.”

“She was happy to do the rebuttal video and was upset by the uproar (caused by the Bashir documentary)” said Pryor. “She was upset that the friendship of her son with Michael Jackson was taken out of context and turned into something bad. She was happy to tell the world it was a beautiful friendship.”

Pryor testified that the mother said of Jackson, “What a great man he is — an angel — his love is great.” And that the mother felt “Michael had helped cure her son” of his caner.   

Pryor insisted she’d only given money to the accuser’s mother out of her own sense of charity. The mother had never asked, though always seemed to be talking about her hardships. Once Bashir exploded, the mom seemed unable to cope. “I think (the mother) was in over her head and didn’t know what to do,” said Pryor. 

As far as the kids were concerned, the portrayed the accuser as a boy who needed to be center stage. “I don’t like to call people’s kids bad,” Pryor said, telling of watching the accuser intentionally kick over a glass of water while watching TV at Chris Tucker’s house to get attention.

Under a very short cross-examination, D.A. Tom Sneddon didn’t challenge Pryor — just led her through a list of the accuser’s family’s positive traits — that they were loving, affectionate, and that Pryor had referred to them as “my family.”

Clocks show up everywhere
in virtual tour of Neverland

Tom Mesereau wanted to take all 12 jurors and eight alternates out to Neverland for a day — show ‘em Michael’s place — let ‘em pet the alpacas, get a close up look at the wine cellar, and Jackson’s bedroom, all those statues of kids playing and the huge paintings of Michael Jackson as the pied piper.

The judge denied the request early on. So today, the next best thing.

It’s a 19-minute travelogue, showing scenes around Neverland. The point — to show the jury that Neverland’s not a den of booze, porn and sex with boys — as one prosecution witness put it, and to point out the dozens of clocks around the ranch. Big clocks, floral clocks, clocks that were illuminated at night.

It goes to the family’s contention that they never knew what time it was while being held against their will at Neverland. The accuser’s brother admitted that while there were a lot of clocks, they often told the wrong time. That became obvious as the camera panned from one clock to another in this tape, though the prosecution made nothing of it.

The virtual tour could have been a double-edged sword. Loyola Law Professor Lori Levenson says, “It helps the defense explain why Michael Jackson lives the type of life he does,” says Levenson. “It’s almost like having Michael Jackson testify without being subject to cross-examination. The other side of it is that some jurors might say, ‘Oh, my goodness. Only a pedophile would be this focused on children.’”

Unresolved issues: What to do
about former Jackson lawyer
Mark Geragos

Tomorrow, Mark Geragos makes a return engagement at Michael Jackson’s trial and the judge has to decide what to about the limited attorney-client privilege Jackson struck with Geragos last week.

It’ll be a trough decision. But if Geragos’ testimony isn’t tossed out and he’s allowed to testify, it won’t be about molestation — because this trial has become a battle over conspiracy.

Jackson's accuser does 'nasty stuff', stars fade as judge sets new rules

Jackson's young cousin sees the accuser
and his brother masturbating to naked
women on TV, but wine testimony backfires

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

12-year-old Rijo Jackson, MIchael Jackson’s cousin, built on the defense case that the accuser and his brother were no strangers to sex and alcohol by the time they met the pop star.

Rijo told of staying with the brothers in a Neverland guest unit one night as the boys watched naked girls on a TV channel and did “nasty stuff.”

“They were jacking off and everything,” said Rijo. “Why don’t you do that with me?” the accuser asked Rijo. “I didn’t want to because it was nasty,” Rijo told the court, adding that he ran to Michael’s room where he spent the night. This happened before the accuser claimed Jackson introduced him to masturbation.

“I was scared,” Rijo said under cross-examination, telling deputy D.A. Ron to slow down his adult-speed questioning. “You’re talking too fast!” said the boy. Zonen dialed down a notch.

Had Rijo told Jackson about the incident? Yes, though the boy said Jackson didn’t believe it. “He thought they were cool and wouldn’t do that,” he said of Jackson. Rijo said he also told his mother who phoned Chris Carter.

Rijo also told of being in Jackson’s two-story bedroom suite when the pop star ordered a bottle of wine and a single glass. The accuser and his brother were there, too. The wine was delivered by assistant chef Angel Vivanco but was intercepted by the accuser and his brother while Jackson was in the bathroom.

The brothers ran upstairs, then ran out of the suite a short time later. Some of the wine was missing. The testimony may have hurt Jackson more than it helped. It was supposed to add to prior testimony that the boys swiped wine at various locations around the ranch, but it placed Jackson in his bedroom, ordering wine with three boys present.

Rijo also accused the brothers of stealing Vivanco’s money from a kitchen drawer, along with cash from the office of ranch manager Jesus Salas.

Jackson's aunt backs Brazil claim
by accuser's sister

Michele Henrette Jackson is Rijo and Simone’s grandmother. (She’s married to Lawrence Jackson — Joe Jackson’s brother, says Raymone Baine). She’d met the accuser, his brother and sister at Neverland in 2003 while picking up her grandkids. She did a lot of the family errand driving.

She backed up Simone’s testimony from yesterday that the accuser’s sister was upset that her mother wanted to go to Brazil. “We don’t want to go to Brazil,” Michelle quoted the little girl as saying, “this is our mother who wants to go.”

Videographer, acting coach
bring testimony back to L.A.

By late morning, the defense shifted back to false imprisonment and coercion allegations through the testimony of videographer Christian Robinson who develops reality TV shows, shoots video and handles post-production.

Robinson was the camera operator on Debbie Rowe’s rebuttal video and sketched out a list of questions Jackson’s ex would be asked for the Fox TV rebuttal show.

But was there a script as the accuser’s mom had testified, and said she was forced to memorize for days? “No sir!” said Robinson. Questions? “Of course.”

Acting coach Vernee Watson-Johnson said the accuser’s mother asked for her help in organizing a fundraiser to help with the costs of her boy’s cancer treatments, but Johnson put on the brakes once she learned that the mom refused to open a separate account to handle donations.

Johnson is a veteran of lots of TV shows. She was a sweathog on Welcome Back, Kotter and Will Smith’s mom on Fresh Prince of Bel Air.

“(The accuser’s mother) didn’t want to set up a separate account. That put an end to the fundraiser. I didn’t trust her,” said Johnson, who visited the boy in the hospital two or three times a week, but only saw the mother there twice. The boy’s father was always in the boy’s room, Johnson testified, the father having gone without showers or meals. She’d make food for the dad and bring it to Kaiser Permanente.

Johnson told of several times that she’d gotten calls from the accuser’s brother — asking to spend the night at Johnson’s home. Johnson said she could hear the mother in the background, prompting the boy. “Tell her you love her.”

It’s the same kind of tactic Jay Leno claims was used on him. Leno is expected to testify, perhaps Monday. But no way would Johnson let the unruly kids spend the night. They’d visited once, trashed her place.

Jackson's camp denies reports
defense will rest within days

Lots of reports swirling around that the defense could rest its case by the end of next week. Not true, says Jackson spokeswoman Raymone Baine who admitted the witness list has been pared down from 151 names.

One possible reason is the judge’s ruling today that if the defense brings in character witnesses, the prosecution can too — anti-character witnesses — and that could bring up a lot of damaging testimony that D.A. Tom Sneddon has laid out in motions.

It includes statements by friend Miko Brando and Jackson employee Norma Stakos about not leaving their kids alone with Jackson, graphic details of Jackson’s 1993 case which was settled out of court, and evidence that Jackson “has taken numerous children into his room and bed while heavily addicted to Demerol and other controlled substances.”

So no Quincy Jones, no Stevie Wonder, no Liz? “We don’t know,” says Baine, though Chris Tucker and his girlfriend Aja Pryor are on board, she says, and Jay Leno is said to be a firm booking. As for Larry King — that depends on a ruling over whether part of his testimony can be admitted even though it may be hearsay.

The defense wants King to tell of a breakfast at Nate & Al’s Deli in in Beverly Hills in which Larry Feldman, the accuser’s attorney, told King that he thought the mom was out for money and had doubts about the family’s credibility. Feldman has denied in earlier testimony that he ever doubted his clients.

In another ruling by Judge Melville, there’ll be no more mention of the mother’s lawsuit against J.C. Penney — the judge saying that case is not going to be retried here. It’s been brought up, enough’s enough.

Social workers, a Jackson cousin, testify for the defense

Los Angeles child services social workers explain
why no molestation charges were filed against
Jackson. His teenage cousin testifies.

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

Flash back to mid-February 2003. The Bashir documentary had just aired, the accuser’s mom was hiding out from the media, and a hotline complaint had been filed with the Los Angeles Department of Children’s and Family Services. It may have been from attorney Gloria Allred.

Social worker Irene Peters responded with a two-pronged investigation: allegations of general neglect by the mother of the accuser, and charges that Jackson had committed child abuse.

Peters works for a special unit that handles high profile cases and supposedly guarantees a high degree of confidentiality when probing allegations involving cops, celebrities and such. 

The interview with the family was unusual — the mother began by showing the social workers a videotape of her-son-the-accuser, shot at Neverland with Jackson during his bout with cancer. The mom said she was playing the tape to show “how caring and loving Michael Jackson was.”

Two Jackson associates were hovering about, there to pressure her into saying good things about Jackson, said the mom in her testimony. That’s when we learned that one of these men had told her to wear a hidden tape recorder so that the secret meeting could be documented. We heard the tape — as much as there was of it, before the mom thought better of the idea and clicked it off. The social workers insisted the Jackson posse leave — and they did, along with Chris Tucker fiancée Aja Pryor and her son.

The family was questioned for 2½ hours, separately and individually. The mom said she kept a vigilant eye on everything was happening at Neverland when her kids were there — that she was walking around all night long. She said the kids slept in the bedroom, but not with Michael. He’d sleep on the floor if he was there, she told the social workers.

She went on to repeat the Michael-as-father-figure claims and clamed that he was responsible for helping her son survive cancer.

When the accuser was asked point-blank whether he had been touched sexually abused by Jackson, the social worker said the boy became upset — insisting “everybody says Michael Jackson is a sexual abuser — he never touched me.”

It all seemed spontaneous, not rehearsed, no pressure. Peters’ conclusion: Charges of general neglect and sexual abuse were unfounded, and that the mom “did a pretty good job of raising her children.” The mother’s only complaint? A release had never been obtained by Martin Bashir for her son’s appearance on his documentary “Living With Michael Jackson.”

Tom Mesereau tried bringing up the mother’s J.C. Penney lawsuit, that her welfare had been fraudulently claimed, and that deep in DCFS files, out of computer database search range, was a claim by the accuser that his mother had sexually molested him. All his questions were ruled out of bounds by the judge.

Sneddon: DCFS botched the probe,
didn't investigate far enough into
charges against Jackson

Under cross-examination, D.A. Tom Sneddon implied that the alleged molestation might have been prevented, asking social worker Peters whether she had attempted to verify the sleeping arrangements at Neverland, or bothered to learn the identity of the girl buddy the accuser’s sister said had accompanied her to Neverland.

The social worker had not, saying Neverland is in Santa Barbara County, and out of her jurisdiction. But Peters, a 30-year DCFS veteran, stood her ground. “If we thought child abuse was going on, we’d be in Children’s Court.”

Sneddon pressed on, suggesting a teenage boy wouldn’t readily admit molestation to a woman. “(The accuser) was open, eager to talk, not all uncomfortable… showed no signs of any indications that he had been sexually molested.” She may be right. D.A. Sneddon’s timeline charges Jackson with molestation that allegedly occured a week or two after the DCFS investigation.

Supervisor Karen Hughes reiterated much of Peters’ testimony, adding that she had indeed contacted Santa Barbara County child protective services, but that agency hadn’t gone to Neverland to investigate.

Like Peters, Hughes told of a running into the accuser’s mother by chance at a FatBurger on Wilshire in L.A. on April 1, 2003. The mom was heading for a private tutoring service where she said her kids were trying to make up for lost school time; Hughes, Peters and a third social workers were cruising for burgers.

The mother told them Jackson wanted to send her to Brazil, but that she didn’t want to go to “that dump.” She complained, as usual, about having no money (boyfriend Jay Jackson was baying the tutoring service) but said nothing about molestation weeks after it was alleged to have taken place. Nor did she mention being held against her will, or ask the social workers to call the cops.

Family affair: A Jackson cousin takes
the stand, tells of wine-snatching
incident by the accuser and his brother

Simone Jackson is the first of several Jackson relatives expected to take the stand. Two of Jackson’s children, Price Michael and Paris, are also on the witness list.

But Simone, and her brother Rio, can give the jury a kid’s-eye view of what was up with the accuser and his family at Neverland. Simone is 16 and lives in nearby Lompoc — the first member of the Jackson family to testify.

She hold of how early one morning in March 2003, while sitting alone in Neverland’s kitchen playing a videogame, she saw Jackson’s accuser and his brother take two bottles of wine and a wine glass from the pantry. “You’re not supposed to do that” she told them. The brothers were unfazed, leaving through the kitchen’s back door. Before they left, the boys told her to keep quiet, not to tell anyone.

Simone is the second witness in two days to testify that the accuser and his brother were caught with wine late at night on the ranch.

Simone also testified that the accuser’s sister sadly told her they may never see each other again. This — while chatting at the aviary in Neverland’s zoo. The sister confided that her mother wanted to go to Brazil — that counters lots of testimony that the mom hated the idea.

Simone was on the stand for only the final half-hour of court. She’ll return in Wednesday morning.

Her brother Rijo is expected to testify that the accuser and his brother knew all about masturbation before they claimed Jackson introduced them to self-gratification. Rio shared a guest quarters room with the boys.