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Accuser told Dean Jackson did nothing
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-03-15 15:33
Under aggressive cross-examination, the teenage boy who says Michael Jackson
molested him acknowledged Monday that the singer "was like a father to me," and
that he told a middle school administrator that the pop star "didn't do anything
to me."
Michael
Jackson and his father Joe Jackson, right, return from
a break at the Santa Barbara County Courthouse in Santa Maria, Calif.,
Monday March 14, 2005 at the pop star's child molestation trial.
[AP] |
Striking at the heart of the
prosecution's allegations of child molestation and conspiracy, defense attorney
Thomas Mesereau Jr. confronted the now-15-year-old boy with a video tribute by
the boy and his family in which they credited Jackson with changing their lives
and helping to cure the boy of cancer.
The video had already been shown in the trial twice. This time, Mesereau
stopped it repeatedly to ask if the boy and his family were lying. In most
instances, the boy said they were speaking the truth.
"Michael was nice to me," he testified. "I felt like he was a father to me."
Prosecutors allege Jackson's associates had the boy's family make the video
after the broadcast of an infamous documentary in which Jackson said he allowed
boys to sleep in his bed. The prosecution claims the rebuttal video was staged
and scripted.
Mesereau asked if the family turned on Jackson and invented the molestation
story because they were being evicted from his Neverland ranch.
"We realized he wasn't as nice a guy as we thought he was," the boy said.
Earlier, the teenager was asked about conversations he had with Jeffrey
Alpert, the dean at John Burroughs Middle School in Los Angeles, where the boy
had a history of acting up in class.
"I told Dean Alpert he didn't do anything to me," the boy said. "I told him
twice."
Prosecutors allege Jackson, 46, plied the boy with alcohol and molested him
at his Neverland Ranch in 2003.
The pop star, who was threatened with arrest when he failed to show up in
court on time Thursday, arrived on schedule Monday. Unlike last time, when a
disheveled Jackson finally arrived in a coat, T-shirt and pajama bottoms, he
wore a smart red jacket with a black armband and black slacks. His parents
escorted him inside.
Mesereau, during his cross-examination, quoted Alpert as telling the
youngster: "Look at me, look at me. ... I can't help you unless you tell me the
truth — did any of this happen?"
When asked when the conversation occurred, the boy said: "I believe it was
after I came back from Neverland."
It was not clear in court why the dean asked the boy about Jackson. However,
when the television documentary aired in 2003, the boy was shown in it.
Also during cross-examination, the boy denied instances of being caught
drinking wine at Neverland, reading "girlie magazines" and masturbating in a
guest house while Jackson wasn't around. He also denied he ever spoke to Jay
Leno, but said he once placed a call to the comedian from a hospital and left a
message on an answering machine.
The defense, which claims the family sought to get money from celebrities,
has said Leno alerted police after a call from the boy because he thought the
family was looking for a "mark."
Mesereau also cross-examined the accuser about similarities between a
statement he testified Jackson made about masturbation and an earlier statement
the boy attributed to his grandmother.
On Thursday, the boy testified Jackson had told him if men do not masturbate,
they might rape women. Mesereau noted the boy told sheriff's investigators in an
interview his grandmother had told him the same thing.
"Why did your story change between that interview and your testimony last
Thursday?" Mesereau asked.
The boy denied changing his story. He said both his grandmother and Jackson
had told him the same thing, but the context was different.
"She was telling me it was OK to do it, and Michael was saying you have to do
it," the boy said.
At he left court Monday, Jackson told reporters: "Mesereau did a great
job."
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