Jackson Accuser May Retake Witness Stand

Prosecutors in Michael Jackson’s trial won a major victory Thursday when a judge said they could show jurors a video recording of the interview when a Los Angeles teenager first alleged the pop star molested him.

The ruling is significant because it allows jurors to hear the boy’s allegations a second time, potentially improving his credibility in the process.

Prosecutors say the July 2003 interview will show that the boy was reluctant to discuss the alleged molestation, undermining defense attorneys’ contention that he had been coached by his mother to accuse Jackson so his family could sue the pop star.

Santa Barbara County Superior Court Judge Rodney S. Melville allowed the video over the objections of Jackson’s defense lawyers, who said it should have been played as part of the prosecution’s main case and not at the end of the trial to rebut the defense’s counterattack.

It’s a way to have the boy “come back and testify without cross-examination one more time in front of the jury right at the end of the case to bolster what is quite a weak case,” Jackson lawyer Robert Sanger argued.

The ruling set the stage for a return to court by the 15-year-old accuser.

If prosecutors present the tape in court, the defense will call the boy back as a witness to confront him again about the allegations, Sanger said, although Melville has not yet decided whether he will allow it.

During testimony in March, Sheriff’s Sgt. Steve Robel described the boy’s demeanor during the interview.

He said the boy was upbeat during early stages of their discussion but became sullen when asked if Jackson had molested him.

“He basically became very, very quiet, folded his arms, and just sunk down into his chair,” Robel said. “And it took me approximately 10 minutes or so to reassure him that he was doing the right thing.”

Legal analysts said the judge’s ruling empowers prosecutors to shift the focus of the trial away from the alleged dishonesty of the boy’s mother, to the center of their case: whether Jackson molested the boy.

Prosecutors could play the video for jurors as early as today.

“This is probably the linchpin of the entire prosecution case. If the boy looks reluctant, embarrassed, ashamed, hesitant and you have to pull the story out of him, that does not fit the picture the defense tried to paint of this boy as coached and out to get Jackson,” said Jim Hammer, a former San Francisco prosecutor who is following the trial as a television analyst.

Jackson, 46, is accused of molesting the boy, a cancer survivor, at Neverland ranch in the Santa Ynez Valley in 2003. He is also charged with attempted molestation, giving minors alcohol to aid in the commission of a felony and of conspiring to keep the accuser and his family from leaving the ranch. If convicted on all charges, he could face more than 20 years in prison.

Defense lawyers did avoid another damaging piece of evidence. Melville said he would not allow prosecutors to present evidence that a 13-year-old boy who accused Jackson of molesting him in 1993 had accurately described blemishes on Jackson’s penis.

Authorities pursuing an earlier criminal case against Jackson won a court order in 1993 that allowed them to photograph the pop star’s genitalia. The photos have remained under seal at a Santa Barbara County bank since then. The investigation ended after Jackson paid the boy’s family a reported $20-million settlement and the family stopped cooperating with authorities.

Prosecutors wanted Melville to allow them to present the photos in court to compare them to a drawing the boy made in 1993.

Senior Deputy Dist. Atty. Ron Zonen said the photos were relevant evidence that Jackson’s relationship with the boy in 1993 “was something more than casual and something more than innocent.”

Melville said the evidence would have been unfairly prejudicial against Jackson, particularly because the young man was not cooperating with prosecutors and would not be available for cross-examination.

“I’m going to deny the request to bring in the evidence of the blemished penis,” Melville said.

After the judge’s rulings, the prosecution spent the rest of the day calling rebuttal witnesses. One witness, a records supervisor for the West Covina Police Department, seemed to help the defense and the prosecution.

The clerk’s testimony regarded a lawsuit the accuser’s mother filed against J.C. Penney Co. over a scuffle she had with security guards who had stopped her son on suspicion of shoplifting. Earlier this week, a defense witness testified the mother had admitted she had used photos of injuries inflicted by her ex-husband after the arrest to frame the security guards for the beating.

On cross-examination, however, the records supervisor produced a booking photo that showed that the accuser’s mother, whose name The Times is withholding to protect her son’s identity, did not appear to be injured when she was arrested and jailed.

The department store chain paid $152,000 to settle the family’s lawsuit.