After Final Swipe at Accuser’s Family, Jackson Defense Rests

Michael Jackson’s attorneys on Wednesday wrapped up a child-molestation defense that was peppered with sometimes amusing appearances from friendly celebrities, but driven by a relentless assault on the pop star’s teenage accuser and his family.

Witnesses portrayed the mother as a shark who faked her alleged imprisonment at Jackson’s Neverland ranch in order to bilk him with a lawsuit, and her two sons as wine-swilling hooligans trained to tell a carefully scripted tale of abuse.

The defense’s final witness, comic Chris Tucker, testified Wednesday in Santa Barbara County Superior Court that the mother was so bizarrely effusive toward him that she seemed “possessed.” Alarmed about the family’s relationship with Jackson, his friend, Tucker told him, “Mike, something ain’t right.”

By focusing on the boy’s mother, whose name The Times is withholding to protect her son’s identity, the defense drew attention from the charges that Jackson had molested her son four times and got him drunk in order to seduce him.

“They were seeking to discredit the mother and make everyone forget about the alleged molestation that’s at the core of the case,” said Jean Rosenbluth, a former prosecutor who teaches law at USC.

The strategy also allowed defense attorneys to streamline their presentation, putting on 50 witnesses in three weeks, compared with the prosecution’s 85 witnesses over nine weeks. As the trial winds down, speed is important, experts said.

“I think this jury looks tired,” said Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School. “Unless you have something new and important to tell them, they may end up holding it against you.”

The defense also exploited the mother’s confused behavior on the stand as a prosecution witness. At one point, a defense witness was asked whether one action of the mother was “normal.”

“For her, it was,” the witness replied sardonically. Many in the courtroom -- including several jurors -- snickered.

Jackson is accused of molesting the 13-year-old recovering cancer patient at Neverland in 2003, plying him with alcohol and conspiring to hold his family against their will so they would take part in a video tribute to refute a British TV documentary, in which Jackson divulged his fondness for nonsexual sleepovers with young boys. Prosecutors say Jackson molested the boy four times in the weeks after the damaging broadcast.

The 46-year-old singer also has been charged with attempted molestation.

After a rebuttal by the prosecution and closing arguments, the case is expected to go to the eight-woman, four-man jury sometime next week. If convicted of all charges, Jackson could face more than 20 years in prison.

Jackson’s lawyers kicked off their case with two witnesses who many legal analysts said did more harm than good -- choreographer Wade Robson and unemployed roulette dealer Brett Barnes. Both young men were close friends of Jackson as children.

They testified that Jackson never touched them inappropriately, contradicting prosecution witnesses who suggested that Jackson had sexual relationships with them.

Under sharp cross-examination, Barnes conceded he and Jackson slept together night after night while he accompanied the singer on tours through South America and Europe in the early 1990s.

And although Barnes insisted there was nothing sexual about the sleepovers, prosecutors were able to underscore once again that Jackson enjoyed sharing his bed with children.

If those admissions hurt the defense case, Jackson’s lawyers swiftly shifted the jury’s attention to a string of witnesses who skewered the accuser and his mother.

At least three witnesses, including Jackson’s cousin, said the boy and his younger brother -- the only eyewitness to two of the alleged molestations -- would raid Neverland’s wine cellar and browse pornography without any help from Jackson. Prosecutors said the pop star used the alcohol and adult magazines to groom the boy for abuse.

According to the boys’ mother, Jackson’s staff members bullied her into staying at the Santa Ynez Valley ranch in 2003, drilling her 10 times daily on the glowing statements she was to make on the star’s “rebuttal video.”

But several defense witnesses from nearby communities testified the family freely went on jaunts to town for beauty and dental treatments. A Solvang orthodontist testified that the mother, during a visit to remove her sons’ braces, never alerted her that she was being held captive, never asked to use a phone, and didn’t try slipping out a back door while a driver from Neverland waited in the lobby.

Similarly, the former owner of a Los Olivos health spa said the mother expressed no fears while getting a leg-waxing and other treatments -- at Jackson’s expense.

The mother’s credibility took further hits from a paralegal who helped the woman successfully sue J.C. Penney Co. for alleged abuse during a 1998 shoplifting arrest. The bruised woman confided that she had been beaten not by security guards but by her ex-husband, Mary Holzer testified.

Holzer said the woman threatened to have her brother-in-law, a gang member, kill her unless she kept quiet.

Before the trial started, jurors were read a star-studded list of more than 400 potential defense witnesses, including Elizabeth Taylor, Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder, Deepak Chopra and other luminaries who would stand up for Jackson. Most weren’t called, but those who appeared served a dual purpose: They disputed prosecution testimony and also conveyed the image of Jackson as a show-business legend with many talented, widely admired friends.

The biggest celebrity to appear was “Tonight Show” host Jay Leno, but he turned out to be something of a dud for defense lawyers.

Leno said Jackson’s accuser left several phone messages saying he was a big fan and asking for a return call. But the boy never asked him for money, derailing the defense contention that the family aimed to shake down Leno before turning to Jackson.

On Wednesday, however, Chris Tucker offered testimony suggesting that he was being set up by the family before they attached themselves to Jackson.

Torn between sympathy for the ailing boy he met at a benefit and concern about the family’s motives, Tucker gave them $1,500, flew them to a Raiders football game in Oakland, and allowed them to attend his brother’s wedding -- to which, he said, “they kind of invited themselves.”

He described Jackson’s accuser as “smart and cunning,” and said the boy’s brother was not to be trusted.

“I almost had to check his pockets before he left the house,” Tucker testified.

But it was the mother who triggered Tucker’s most serious worries. He testified that he was put off by her lavish praise for him and his fiancee, Azja Pryor. When he told the mother he would help the family out by giving her his used truck, he testified that “she started frantically crying and her eyes were red. She was shaking -- like she was possessed.”

When Santa Barbara County Dist. Atty. Tom Sneddon suggested she was simply grateful, Tucker insisted she had serious emotional problems.

“I meet a lot of people,” he told the prosecutor, “and I know the difference.”

Pryor, a Hollywood casting assistant, testified that the mother, whom she got to know through Tucker, had expressed eagerness to take part in the rebuttal video and sounded well when she called from the shoot. Pryor also said the mother invited her to tag along with Jackson and her family on a holiday trip to Carnaval in Brazil.

The mother had testified that the Brazil trip, which never happened, was part of Jackson’s plan to have her and her children disappear.

Former child actor Macaulay Culkin also played a leading role for the defense.

Culkin, too, rejected prosecution claims that Jackson had molested him -- perhaps in his sleep, prosecutor Ron Zonen suggested -- either at Neverland or during their trips abroad. The actor testified that life at Neverland was such intense, nonstop fun that he would flop for the night wherever he happened to get tired, whether it was on the floor of the video arcade or in Jackson’s bed.

At 24, Culkin still has the hangdog look and easy manner of the boy he was when he starred in the movie “Home Alone.” Those familiar qualities may have helped him connect with the jury, according to many observers.

Perhaps even more important, Culkin gave jurors some sympathetic insights into Jackson. He said that despite their age difference, the two became close friends because each knew what it was like to have his childhood cut short by show business.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Celebrity witnesses

The more well-known actors and TV personalities with roles in Michael Jackson’s child-molestation trial were:

For the defense

Macaulay Culkin

As a child star, the 24-year-old actor was a young pal who spent many nights home alone with Jackson at Neverland. He testified that Jackson never touched him inappropriately, and that the two became close friends after discussing the pitfalls of early fame.

Jay Leno

The “Tonight Show” host testified that his suspicions were raised by “overly effusive” voicemails from the young cancer patient who eventually became Jackson’s accuser. But he said that the boy never asked for money, disappointing the defense.

Chris Tucker

The comic said he felt sorry for the ailing boy and took the family under his wing. But he soon grew suspicious of their motives and came to view the mother as a woman with severe emotional problems.

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For the prosecution

George Lopez

The comedian called the boy’s father an “extortionist” who tried to exploit his son’s illness for money. Prosecutors have contended that the mother, who is now divorced from the boy’s father, was blameless, while defense attorneys argue that she masterminded a plot to bilk Jackson through phony molestation claims.

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For neither

Larry King

The defense wanted the TV talk-show host to testify about a chat over breakfast with Los Angeles attorney Larry Feldman. According to King, the lawyer said he met with the accuser’s family and concluded that the mom was a “wacko” who was “in it for the money.” However, jurors didn’t get to see King because the judge ruled that his testimony would prove nothing.

Source: Times research

Los Angeles Times