Jackson’s Accuser Takes the Stand

Michael Jackson came face to face with his teenage accuser Wednesday as the boy began testifying in the child-molestation trial of the pop singer he once thought of as “the coolest guy in the world.”

Now 15, the former cancer patient offered more detailed answers to questions from Santa Barbara County Dist. Atty. Tom Sneddon than did his older sister and younger brother, who have been on the witness stand over the last few days.

The youth appeared more at ease than his siblings, although he tended at times to lapse into a mumbling monotone.

The youth told of surfing Internet porn sites with Jackson one night at the pop star’s Neverland ranch in the Santa Ynez Valley. He also told jurors that after meeting Jackson, he thought of the singer as “like my best friend ever.”

There was little visible interaction between the boy and the 46-year-old pop star, who was seated at the defense table nearby. Turned toward the jury for much of his 60 minutes on the stand, the teenager glanced at Jackson when asked whether he could identify the defendant.

“Yes,” he said in the hushed courtroom. “That’s Michael Jackson.”

The boy’s appearance Wednesday afternoon marked the beginning of what is likely to be the most crucial testimony in the case. If jurors are skeptical of the boy’s account, prosecutors may not be able to put together enough corroborative evidence to win a conviction.

In his testimony, the boy took several opportunities to tell jurors that it was his father, not his mother, who had contacted celebrities for handouts, he said. The testimony will be challenged by defense attorneys, who contend that the mother, now divorced, is trying to shake down Jackson with phony accusations.

Much of the ground covered by the boy’s testimony is now familiar to jurors. He told of how he, his siblings and his mother were often beaten by the man he called his “biological father.” He talked about growing up in a cramped East Los Angeles “bachelor apartment” and about being diagnosed with what was thought to be terminal cancer when he was 10, in 2000.

“I heard the doctor tell my parents to prepare for my funeral,” he said. “He said if the cancer didn’t kill me, the chemotherapy would.”

After a family friend arranged a call to the boy’s hospital bed from Jackson, the singer had the boy and his family visit him at Neverland. The boy, an aspiring comedian who attended summer camp with his siblings at a Los Angeles comedy club, was awed.

He said he and his brother were eager to take Jackson up on his invitation to spend a night in his two-story bedroom suite. At Jackson’s urging, the two got permission from their parents.

In the suite, the boy said, Jackson assistant Frank Tyson turned on his computer and surfed porn sites as the boys and Jackson looked on, joking. To a photo of a busty woman, Jackson quipped: “Got milk?”

“We were all laughing and stuff,” the boy said.

The boy, his brother and their father visited the ranch another half a dozen times, but Jackson often wasn’t there, he testified.

Other stars had been steadier friends, he said. At comedy camp, he and his family got to know comedian Chris Tucker, who took the children to Laker games and visited the boy’s hospital room at midnight on New Year’s Eve.

Despite feeling rebuffed by Jackson, the boy returned to Neverland in 2002, at Jackson’s invitation. British TV journalist Martin Bashir was there, and Jackson wanted to get the boy on tape saying “that he pretty much cured me of cancer,” the boy testified.

On the video, the boy is seen holding hands with Jackson and resting his head against the pop singer’s shoulder. Later in the video, Jackson told Bashir that he enjoyed sleepovers with young boys, triggering global outrage and, according to prosecutors, an elaborate scheme by Jackson to counter the damage.

In addition to child molestation, Jackson is charged with conspiring to hold the family at Neverland against their will. If convicted on all counts, he could face 20 years in prison.

Earlier on Wednesday, defense attorney Thomas A. Mesereau Jr. finished his cross-examination of the boy’s 14-year-old brother, who contends he twice saw the pop star fondling his brother in early 2003.

On Tuesday, the boy testified that he was standing in a stairwell during the second incident. But under cross-examination Wednesday, the boy admitted telling Santa Barbara County sheriff’s detectives in 2003 that he was on a couch in Jackson’s bedroom, pretending to be asleep, when he saw his brother being molested.

The boy also conceded other inconsistencies. He told detectives that in the second incident, Jackson and his brother were side-by-side in bed and that Jackson was moving his hips back and forth against his brother. But he testified Tuesday that he saw Jackson masturbating that night, with one hand tucked inside his brother’s underwear.

Also on Wednesday, the court unsealed a request by Jackson’s lawyers for a jury trip to the 2,800-acre Neverland ranch where Jackson keeps a private zoo, carnival rides and a video arcade.

In the filing, Jackson lawyer Robert M. Sanger said the defense wanted to show that the ranch was not designed as a “pleasure island” to lure young boys, as prosecutors have alleged.