Jurors Hear 2 Views of Jackson

Michael Jackson is a cunning pedophile who preyed on a young cancer survivor, a prosecutor argued in his closing statement Thursday, but a defense lawyer painted a contrasting picture of a naive, childlike musician targeted by a family of con artists.

With each side experiencing highs and lows during three months of testimony, the molestation case against Jackson could come down to which attorney is more persuasive: smooth-talking Jackson lawyer Thomas A. Mesereau Jr. or intense Santa Barbara County Senior Deputy Dist. Atty. Ronald Zonen.

In the courtroom for the closing arguments were media from around the world, several dozen Jackson fans and the pop star’s closest relatives, including three brothers who performed with him in the Jackson Five.

“This case is about the exploitation and sexual abuse of a 13-year-old cancer survivor at the hands of an international celebrity,” Zonen said.

The prosecutor, speaking rapidly, told the Santa Barbara County Superior Court jury of four men and eight women that Jackson has a long history of targeting vulnerable children from broken homes, impressing them with his fame and wealth and winning the trust of their mothers before bringing the boys into his bed.

Jackson, 46, invited the cancer survivor to his Neverland ranch in the Santa Ynez Valley in February and March 2003 and allowed the boy and his brother to roam the grounds free of supervision and with unlimited access to carnival rides, all-terrain vehicles, a zoo and all the candy and treats they could stomach. Then he showed the accuser pornography, plied him with enough alcohol to make him groggy and molested him four times, Zonen said.

“They did whatever they wanted during the day and at night they entered into the world of the forbidden. They entered Michael Jackson’s bedroom, which is a veritable fortress,” said Zonen, who addressed the jury for nearly three hours.

Mesereau shifted the jury’s focus to the boy’s mother, who a witness testified had fabricated evidence to win a settlement from J.C. Penney Co. in 1998 and then committed welfare fraud by hiding the $32,000 she pocketed.

He said the mother persuaded her children to falsely accuse Jackson of molesting her oldest son to win money in an eventual lawsuit against the singer.

“The first step [to a lawsuit] is a conviction in this courtroom, by you,” Mesereau told jurors. “There’s going to be a great celebration in Los Angeles if he’s convicted of even one count.”

Jurors listened intently to both lawyers and many of them scribbled notes throughout the day.

Jackson is charged with 10 felonies: four counts of child molestation, four counts of plying a minor with alcohol in order to molest him, one count of attempted child molestation and one of conspiracy to hold the boy and his family captive at the Neverland ranch. If convicted of all charges, Jackson could get more than 20 years in prison.

Under a California law, prosecutors were allowed to present evidence to show that Jackson has a history of molesting boys. Zonen said Jackson’s alleged sexual contacts with boys in the 1990s was powerful evidence he later molested the cancer survivor.

The prosecutor displayed photographs of three of the five boys Jackson is alleged to have abused in the ‘90s, as well as the current accuser, on a large screen.

The four boys bore a striking resemblance to one another: each dark-haired, lean and handsome. Jackson paid two of them millions of dollars in legal settlements after they accused him of abusing them.

But Mesereau said that three of the five boys, including actor Macaulay Culkin, denied they were abused.

“They brought in alleged victims from the ‘90s -- three of them came in here and said nothing happened -- because they’re desperate. They’re absolutely desperate,” Mesereau said.

Zonen also displayed Jackson’s statements in a February 2003 British documentary that he had slept chastely with boys: “I have slept in a bed with many children. I slept in a bed with all of them.”

He told jurors that Jackson panicked after these statements in the documentary “Living with Michael Jackson” set off a worldwide furor. On the video, Jackson was shown holding hands and cuddling with his current accuser.

In order to counter career-threatening publicity, and to make millions, Jackson held the boy and his family hostage at his ranch to get them to praise him on a rebuttal video that eventually aired on the Fox network, the prosecutor said.

Zonen asked the jury to understand how difficult it must have been for Jackson’s accuser, at age 15, to take the witness stand and describe intimate sexual contact with Jackson. The boy said Jackson twice masturbated him while the two cuddled in the pop star’s bed, once to the point of ejaculation.

“That had to be the second most difficult moment of his life,” Zonen said, describing the most difficult moment as the first time the boy described the molestation to Santa Barbara County sheriff’s detectives.

“And yet we are supposed to believe that what he said was all made up because there was some expectation at some point in the future he’d become wealthy.... That’s nonsense ... unmitigated rubbish.”

But Mesereau told jurors that Jackson had long been a target of grifters, in part because of his celebrity.

“When he settled those two cases in the early 1990s he became a real target for people who don’t want to work and he still is,” Mesereau said.

He said that the case, which did not include DNA or other forensic evidence, comes down to the word of two teenage boys: the accuser and his brother, who said he witnessed two of Jackson’s sexual advances.

Mesereau questioned why Jackson, as prosecutors say, would have molested the boy only after the British documentary drew worldwide media scrutiny and an investigation by Los Angeles social workers into the singer’s activities with children.

He said prosecutors were stuck with that timeline because after the documentary, the boy and his family had praised Jackson on the rebuttal video as a loving father figure.

“It’s absurd. It’s unrealistic. It makes no sense because the whole case makes no sense,” Mesereau said.

He told jurors that Jackson is a unique, brilliant person who never enjoyed a traditional childhood and likes to help troubled youngsters. The pop star spends his free time sitting and thinking in a tree on the grounds of Neverland, the lawyer said.

Jackson was so naive that he thought the documentary by British journalist Martin Bashir would be favorable, Mesereau said. Mesereau said it was significant that the boy’s family went to the civil lawyer who sued Jackson for alleged child molestation in 1993 before bringing the boy’s tale of molestation to sheriff’s detectives.

“If you truly believe [the boy was molested] why are you going to those lawyers first?” Mesereau said.

The defense lawyer also disputed a last-minute prosecution bombshell, a videotape that showed the accuser haltingly telling detectives for the first time that Jackson molested him and then asking them not to tell his mother.

Mesereau said the boy showed no emotion during the interview.

“Remember, he’s trained as an actor,” the attorney said.

Both lawyers are scheduled to finish their closing arguments today. Deliberations could begin this afternoon, shifting the focus to the jury.

At least one member of the panel has proposed writing a book about her experiences in the case, according to the juror’s granddaughter and a Colorado writer who wants to help write it.

The juror, a 79-year-old Santa Maria resident, first mentioned a possible book deal shortly after she was seated on Jackson’s jury in February, said her granddaughter, Traci Montgomery, a Roseville, Calif., high school English teacher.

“She heard some juror from the Scott Peterson trial had published a book. She asked me if I thought it was possible” to write a book about the Jackson trial, Montgomery said.

Denver author Ernie Carwile confirmed he had agreed to be the co-author. The juror does not have a publisher and has not spoken to Carwile because of the judge’s instructions to avoid discussing the case with anyone, Montgomery said.

State law prohibits jurors from selling their stories until 90 days after they are discharged from a case.