Jackson Witness Says He Saw Boy Molested

In graphic testimony at Michael Jackson’s child-molestation trial Monday, the brother of Jackson’s accuser told of witnessing two sexual encounters between the singer and the 13-year-old cancer survivor.

Now a high school freshman, the brother, who was 12 at the time, is the only eyewitness to the alleged molestation who has been identified by prosecutors. He has not yet been cross-examined by defense attorney Thomas A. Mesereau Jr., who last Friday and earlier on Monday tore into testimony from the boys’ older sister.

Clearly uncomfortable on the witness stand, the brother, now 14, responded to questions in halting phrases, sometimes raising the pitch of his voice at the end of a sentence as if he were asking a question.

In his testimony, he said he twice saw the singer masturbating in bed while fondling his alleged victim, who the brother said was asleep on both occasions.

In addition to the two alleged masturbation incidents in 2003, he told of Jackson getting drunk on wine with him and his brother, making obscene crank calls with them, surfing erotic websites and thumbing through his collection of porn magazines with them, laughing as he simulated sex with a mannequin at his Neverland ranch in Santa Barbara County.

Jackson’s parents and his brother Jermaine sat somberly in the courtroom. Jackson, gaunt in his dark suit and brocade vest, shook his head from time to time and, at one point, wrote a note and slid it to Mesereau.

The 46-year-old singer is charged with molesting the 13-year-old cancer survivor and conspiring to hold the boy and his family at Neverland against their will. If convicted on all 10 felony counts, Jackson faces 20 years in prison.

In testimony Monday, the boy described Jackson’s appearing naked as he and his older brother watched a movie in the singer’s two-story Neverland bedroom suite.

“I was grossed out,” he said.

It was only after goading from Santa Barbara County Dist. Atty. Tom Sneddon that the boy recalled Jackson allegedly being sexually aroused.

Jackson got to know the family in 2000, calling the gravely ill young cancer patient after the boy had asked for an introduction from a family friend in show business. Prosecutors contend that Jackson, desperate to counter catastrophic publicity about his alleged fondness for young boys, held the family captive at Neverland to exact a video tribute from them about the star’s humanitarian qualities.

The boys and the young son of a Jackson employee would sometimes all share Jackson’s bed with him, the brother testified on Monday. A photograph beamed onto the courtroom wall showed a version of Leonardo da Vinci’s “Last Supper” on a wall above the singer’s king-size bed, with Jackson’s face superimposed on that of Jesus.

One night in February 2003, the brother was climbing the stairs to Jackson’s bedroom when, by the stairway light, he saw the singer lying on his back next to his brother, who was curled up and facing away from him.

The boy said Jackson’s eyes were closed and his left hand was inside his snoring brother’s pants. Meanwhile, the boy claimed, Jackson was stroking himself with his right hand.

“I didn’t know what to do,” the brother said, explaining that he fled down the stairs, bunked with his sister for the night in a Neverland guest cottage and didn’t tell anyone about the incident until he confided it to a psychologist months later.

Two nights later, the boy said, he saw the same scene, again from the stairway.

Prosecutors have claimed that in his relationship with the boys, Jackson displayed a “grooming” behavior common to many pedophiles. The aim, they said, was to accustom boys to the idea of a sexual encounter by bringing up subjects like masturbation, by dipping into porn and by generally acting like young teenagers.

On Monday, the brother said Jackson liked to dial random numbers with the boys from his bedroom at Neverland or, once, from a chartered jet. If a woman answered, he would ask a question about her private parts before hanging up.

“If no one picked up, he would have us take a drink of wine,” the boy said.

When the boy’s sister was on the stand earlier Monday, jurors heard a tape made on Feb. 16, 2003, by Bradley Miller, a Beverly Hills private investigator who worked for Mark Geragos, a previous Jackson attorney. It was recorded at a time when the family was said to be living in fear of Jackson, but on it, the mother and her three children sing Jackson’s praises in a 40-minute interview with the investigator.

Using phrases almost identical to those she used in a videotape made by Jackson associates days later, the mother said the star was “everything a loving father could be” to her three children. Separated from her allegedly abusive husband of 17 years, she said she and her children had been “rejected, neglected, spit on, fried, tried and abused” before Jackson took them under his wing.

The children were almost as effusive, chiming in and interrupting one another when asked to talk about Jackson.

“We love him so much,” said the boy who later accused him of molestation.

Responding to a question from Miller, the woman and her children asserted that Jackson had done nothing inappropriate to anyone in the family. The alleged molestation started later that month, according to prosecutors.

Family members have said they lauded Jackson on the so-called rebuttal video, on Miller’s tape recording and in a meeting with Los Angeles social workers because they feared for their lives.

When Miller made his recording, the family already had been threatened by Jackson aides, the sister testified on Monday.

But Mesereau rejected that, returning to the theme he has sounded since pretrial hearings. It’s the family, not Jackson, who are the predators, he insisted, saying that just a week after the glowing tape-recording, they met with a Los Angeles attorney to explore a lawsuit against Jackson.

The sister denied it, and Mesereau all but called her a liar, ending his cross-examination by demanding: “Have you told the truth throughout your testimony?”

She said she had.