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Video reveals accuser account

BY TINA SUSMAN | STAFF CORRESPONDENT

May 28, 2005

Michael Jackson is scanned by a metal detector upon his arrival Friday at the Santa Barbara County Courthouse in Santa Maria, Calif., for proceedings in his child molestation trial. (Getty Images Photo)

SANTA MARIA, Calif. - Prosecutors in Michael Jackson's child molestation trial Friday showed jurors a video of Jackson's accuser reluctantly telling police that the entertainer had fondled him and gotten him drunk, concluding its rebuttal phase in the case.

In a surprising twist, Jackson's defense did not offer its own rebuttal, clearing the way for closing arguments and the start of deliberations next week after more than two months of testimony.

Defense attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr. had indicated that he would call the accuser, now 15, to the stand when the prosecution's rebuttal concluded. Instead, after a brief cross-examination of the detective who conducted the videotaped interview, Mesereau announced quietly, "The defense rests."

Legal experts said the move indicated the defense did not want to risk having the last witness on the stand be the teenage cancer survivor, who says he was molested four times by Jackson at his Neverland Valley Ranch during February and March 2003.

Prosecutors say Jackson also held the boy, his two siblings, and his mother captive during that time and plied the boy with alcohol to weaken his resistance to the molestation.

The defense says the accusers are con artists who invented the charges in hope of extorting Jackson. It devoted its case to undermining their credibility.

The prosecution's purpose in showing the police interview was aimed at restoring that credibility and challenging defense claims that the boy's statements were rehearsed.

In the 64-minute video, the dark-haired boy sits slumped in a chair as he recalls how Jackson first contacted him in 2000 when he was hospitalized with cancer and the pop star called to cheer him up. Thus began a friendship that, according to prosecutors, turned sour in 2003 during the family's lengthy stay at Neverland.

"Toward the last days I was staying at Neverland ... he would always have me drink," said the boy, often mumbling. When asked whether Jackson had touched him inappropriately, he sat silently for about a minute and then said the singer "grabbed" him in his "private area."

"He said, 'There's nothing wrong with this, it's OK,' " said the boy, adding that he protested but that Jackson persisted. "He said, 'Don't tell nobody, it's our little secret.' "