Text size:

Leno doesn't aid Jackson defense

Experts believe strategy - to damage accusers' credibility by using comedian - may have backfired

BY TINA SUSMAN | STAFF CORRESPONDENT

May 25, 2005

Entertainer Jay Leno arrives at the Santa Barbara County Courthouse to testify for the defense in Michael Jackson's child molestation trial in Santa Maria, Calif. (AP Photo / May 24, 2005)

SANTA MARIA, Calif. - In a trial where the unexpected has come to be expected, "Tonight Show" host Jay Leno upheld the tradition yesterday by testifying that the family accusing Michael Jackson of molestation never asked him for money or gifts.

Leno's testimony clearly surprised the defense, which had counted on him to bolster its theory that Jackson's accusers were swindlers who tried to worm their way into wealthy entertainers' lives with tales of woe.

The comedian, however, painted a generally uneventful picture of his brief acquaintance with the mother and her three children as he described a series of phone calls from them in 2000 when her eldest son - Jackson's alleged victim - had cancer. Leno said the boy called him from a hospital and left him several messages, which was not unusual given the comedian's involvement in programs aimed at fulfilling wishes of ill children.

In those messages, and in a conversation with the boy, Leno admitted that he found the 10-year-old "overly effusive" for someone so young, as if he had been scripted. Rather than stammering or sounding gawky, the boy said things like "You're the greatest" and "I'm a big fan," said Leno, adding that it "sounded suspicious" that a boy would be so enamored of a middle-aged TV host.

"I'm not Batman. It seemed unusual," he said, eliciting laughs from the packed courtroom.

Even after being pressed by defense attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr., though, Leno insisted that neither the boy nor his mother ever asked him for anything in that phone conversation, or in a number of subsequent voice messages they left for him. "I'm sure of that, because if they had, I would have sent something," Leno said.

The messages eventually stopped, said Leno, who held the stand less than a half-hour and provoked roars of laughter as he announced on his way out of court, "We have Renee Zellweger on the show tonight!"

The comedian, who has made a point of poking fun at Jackson during his monologues, was the first of 11 witnesses to take the stand yesterday. Mesereau said he would be finished today, setting the stage for prosecution rebuttal that is expected to last through tomorrow.

While the defense has enjoyed a string of powerful witnesses who have crucified the accusers' credibility, it had hoped that Leno would help.

Instead, legal experts said he may have hurt Jackson's case.

"The defense had their Debbie Rowe moment with Jay Leno," said former Santa Barbara County prosecutor Craig Smith, referring to the bombshell that Rowe - Jackson's ex-wife - dropped on prosecutors last month when she took the stand as their star witness and proceeded to praise the defendant's fathering skills.

The defense took another hit from another famous name yesterday when Marlon Brando's 9-year-old granddaughter, Prudence Brando, also did not testify as expected. Rather than trashing the behavior of Jackson's accusers, Prudence, who had met them at Jackson's Neverland Valley Ranch, could barely remember seeing them do anything other than drive golf carts recklessly.

The defense closed the day as it opened it, with another comedian, Chris Tucker. Tucker, the defense's 50th and final witness, said he met the accusers in 2001 at a comedy club where an event to raise money for the boy's medical expenses was being held.

A few days afterward, Tucker said he sent the family about $1,500 after they told him they had not made any money during the event.