Jackson Lawyers Call D.A. to Testify

As a white-suited Michael Jackson looked on, the prosecutor he once sang of as “a cold man” was grilled in court Monday by lawyers attempting to have key evidence suppressed from the entertainer’s upcoming trial on child molestation charges.

Jackson, his parents, and five of his brothers and sisters, also clad in white in a show of support, came to watch as Santa Barbara Dist. Atty. Tom Sneddon underwent an unusual and withering public interrogation from Jackson’s lead attorney, Thomas Mesereau Jr.

Attorneys for Jackson said that Santa Barbara officials illegally raided the office of a Beverly Hills private investigator who worked for Mark Geragos, one of Jackson’s former attorneys. They argued that the search last November violated the confidentiality between attorney and client, making videotapes and other seized materials inadmissible in court. Monday’s hearing was to decide whether this evidence will be allowed at trial.

But on the witness stand, Sneddon insisted that at the time of the search he knew of only an extremely limited relationship between Geragos and the private investigator, Bradley Miller. Without evidence that Miller worked for Geragos on the child-molestation accusations against Jackson, Sneddon said the search was conducted properly.

However, some legal experts suggested that the veteran prosecutor was being deliberately naive.

“He was playing the role of clueless prosecutor,” said Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles who attended the hearing. “At times, it sounded like a small-claims furniture dispute run amok instead of the trial of the century.”

Hammering home their contention that Sneddon must have at least suspected Miller was an investigator for Geragos, Jackson’s attorneys pointed to several letters between Geragos and William Dickerman, an attorney for the mother of Jackson’s accuser. The letters, which prosecutors had gathered as evidence, dealt with furniture that Miller had placed in storage after the boy’s family had left their East Los Angeles apartment and moved to Neverland, Jackson’s rural estate.

Several of the letters referred to Miller. One was written by Miller to the mother’s attorney and copied to Geragos.

“So you never drew a connection between Geragos and Miller?” Mesereau asked the district attorney incredulously. “It never dawned on you that Mr. Miller, as a private investigator, might be working with Mr. Geragos?”

“That’s absolutely correct.” said Sneddon, adding that one reason for the search was to clarify Miller’s role in the tangle of accusations against Jackson and a number of his employees. Sneddon said the boy’s mother had told his investigators that Miller worked for Jackson and had threatened her family if they decided not to participate in a “rebuttal video” to restore the singer’s reputation.

While defending the office raid, Sneddon acknowledged two major mistakes that occurred months later.

In a telephone conference with defense attorneys last month, he said he had known before the search that Miller worked for Geragos. The next morning, he called to reverse himself.

In the other instance, Sneddon blamed a fellow prosecutor for wrongly suggesting in a court document that the district attorney’s office suspected Miller of being a key investigator for Geragos. He said he learned that was the case from Geragos only in December -- weeks after the search.

Such errors bruised Sneddon’s credibility but probably not enough to persuade Superior Court Judge Rodney S. Melville to throw out any evidence, Levenson said.

“It may have been gratifying for Michael Jackson to see this, but it might not have much legal impact,” she said. Sneddon won’t be a witness in the trial, she said, and he might not be the trial attorney.

To prepare for the search last November, Sneddon had visited Miller’s office and later presented a photo of Miller to the alleged victim’s mother for positive identification.

On Monday, Sneddon said that he had been in Los Angeles to see an art show at the Getty Center with his wife, and to give the alleged victim’s mother paperwork that would qualify her for a state victim’s fund.

He disagreed with Mesereau’s suggestion that he had been “investigating” Miller.

“Oh,” Mesereau said, “so you were just there having a good time?”

Under questioning from Deputy Dist. Atty. Ronald Zonen, Sneddon later explained that his work that day took no more than 20 minutes.

The exchanges between Sneddon and Mesereau grew testy at times.

The judge warned Mesereau to drop his occasional sarcastic tone. And he cautioned Sneddon against debating the legal propriety of every one of his adversary’s questions.

“The problem we have here is not an unusual one when attorneys testify,” Melville said.

Dozens of Jackson’s fans turned out at the courthouse to show their support for the singer, including one fan who set up a keyboard and played “Thriller,” and another who mimicked Jackson’s famous moonwalk. They greeted the star’s tan double-decker bus as it pulled into the parking lot of the Santa Maria Courthouse about 9:45 a.m.

As the crowd shouted “We love you, Michael,” a hand lifted the blinds on the bus’ dark-tinted windows and pointed to the crowd, pressed up against a chain-link fence 20 yards away.

Amid chants of “innocent,” Jackson, who wore reflector sunglasses and a yellow armband, emerged from the bus surrounded by family members and bodyguards. The singer flashed a peace sign over his back and quickly disappeared into the courthouse.

Fourteen-year-old Vienna Wood of Scotts Valley was thrilled that she caught a glimpse of the famous singer.

“A lot of people say, ‘I’ve been a fan my whole life,’ but sometimes I feel bad because I’ve only been into it for the past year,” said Wood, who was holding a sign promoting a website she created for Jackson.

Vienna’s dad, Andrew, held a sign of his own: “My daughter dragged me out here!”

At the noon break, Jackson and his family emerged from the courthouse amid more cheers as they boarded the bus. The singer tantalized the crowd when he waved to them from a window on the upper deck.

Responding to chants of “Michael, come out!” the singer, his parents and his brothers, Randy, Jackie and Jermaine, and sisters, Janet and LaToya, stepped off the bus and walked along the chain-link fence to greet the crowd.

It was the second public appearance for Jackson in the last two days. On Sunday, as CBS News reported that the state attorney general’s office had cleared Santa Barbara sheriff’s deputies of charges that Jackson had been mistreated during his arrest, the pop star caused a stir by attending services at the First African Methodist Episcopal Church in Los Angeles. Afterward, he visited the church’s Sunday school.

With dozens of television cameras and an entourage that included his brother, Randy, entertainer Steve Harvey, his lawyers and a phalanx of well-dressed bodyguards, Jackson made his way into a Sunday school class.

A 13-year-old-girl raised her hand and asked, “As black children in the community, would it be OK if we visited Neverland?”

“You’re welcome anytime,” Jackson responded.

His spokeswoman insisted that the visit was not a publicity stunt, and bristled at suggestions that it might have been inappropriate for him to visit children the day before a court case related to his child molestation charges.

Harvey, who described himself as Jackson’s friend, chastised the media for their prurient interest.

“When you get falsely accused, how would you feel?” he asked.

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Times staff writer Jessica Garrison contributed to this report.