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Jackson Defense Brings Down House
by Joal Ryan
Apr 12, 2005, 6:05 PM PT
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The stepfather of Michael Jackson's accuser still doesn't have his house.
That would be the house the man said one of the singer's lackeys promised his then-girlfriend's family in 2003 in return for her and her children's participation in a video rebutting Martin Bashir's infamous Jackson documentary.
"Did you accept the house?" defense attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr. asked the man.
"I still don't have it, no," the man said. "I don't see the house yet."
"Are you still looking for it?" Mesereau asked.
The man said no, but his testimony Tuesday in Jackson's molestation and conspiracy trial otherwise played right into the defense's game plan.
The stepfather's appearance came as the proceedings in the Santa Maria, California, courthouse shifted from the past back to the present, ending days of testimony about decade-old fondling allegations.
The appearance also came as ABC News reported the man's wife--aka the accuser's mother, aka the prosecution's most key adult witness, aka the defense's ultimate target--might not come to court. The woman had been billed to take the stand as early as Tuesday, or possibly Wednesday.
In an abbreviated session Tuesday, the witness box belonged to the stepfather, a career Army reservist who wed the accuser's mother last year. He acknowledged telling Jackson associate Frank Tyson in the frantic wake of the Bashir documentary, "You're making millions out of this. What is this family going to get?"
The man said he believed Jackson was going to pocket $4 million-5 million for starring in a Maury Povich-hosted Bashir rebuttal documentary for Fox.
"I basically said that...in my perception, [the Jackson camp] should compensate this family for helping out in this video," the stepfather testified.
The defense has long portrayed the accuser's family as being on the make for Jackson's millions.
Almost on point, the stepfather talked of being unimpressed by Tyson's offers of protection ("I said, 'Frank, the family doesn't need any protection. Who are you protecting them against?' "), college educations for the children ("They're in the eighth grade. They didn't need a college education."), and the aforementioned house. He even scoffed at an offer of $400-$500 from a British tabloid for an interview with the family.
"I said, "I don't think that's going to happen," the man said.
The tabloid offer eventually grew to $15,000. The man rejected that, too--giving the prosecution a chance to make a point.
"Have you accepted money from anybody?" prosecutor Ronald Zonen asked.
"Zero," the man said. "We have not accepted a penny."
Jackson, 46, is accused of molesting the man's eldest step son
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Jackson Defense Brings Down House
by Joal Ryan
Apr 12, 2005, 6:05 PM PT
cont'd
The man said he was suspicious of Team Jackson, and they of him. Tyson, one of Jackson's unindicted coconspirators, once asked the stepfather if he was trying to blackmail the singer. In his testimony, the man denied ever making demands of the star.
Jackson, 46, is accused of molesting the man's eldest stepchild, then 13, in 2003 at Neverland, and liquoring up the boy with everything from wine to vodka. The pop star is also accused of conspiring to hold the boy, his two siblings and his mother captive at his estate. Jackson has pleaded innocent to all charges.
The stepfather was not a witness to the alleged molestation or drinking incidents. He said he'd never even seen Jackson until coming to the courtroom Tuesday.
Instead, the stepfather was brought in to help the prosecution build its conspiracy case. Per the state, Jackson's camp became unglued after the Bashir documentary debuted on ABC on Feb. 6, 2003. The special showed Jackson holding the hand of his future accuser, and raised new questions about the entertainer's bedroom habits.
On the stand, the stepfather talked of his future wife and her children being whisked off to Miami around the time of the Bashir air date. The prosecution alleges this was one of Team Jackson's attempts to keep the family under wraps. It also alleges this was where Jackson began to "groom" his accuser for illicit activities.
After the family returned from Miami, the man testified, the accuser seemed "angry," "mean" and fond of "curse words." "Night and day," the man said. "It appeared to me that he'd been brainwashed in some way." Previously, jurors have heard much testimony about polite boys, including the 1993-94 accuser, being turned into hellions after repeated exposure to Jackson.
To the man, his future wife sounded "distressed" and "disturbed" upon her return from Miami. The woman called him several times from Neverland, where she stayed following the Florida excursion. Each of the calls ended abruptly, he said. Per the prosecution's timeline, this was around the time the woman and her three eldest children were being held against their will at Jackson's estate.
The man said he didn't see his future wife again until he met her at a beauty salon in Brentwood, California. There, he found her by herself, until her eldest son--Jackson's accuser--walked in with a Jackson associate. The boy was "cocky," the stepfather said; the Jackson associate determined that the mother return to Neverland.
But under cross-examination by Mesereau, the man said he walked out of the salon with his future wife. Her children were driven to a family home the next day, he said.
Mesereau again mocked the notion the woman and her children were Jackson's captives. He noted that the salon was within shouting distance of a federal building teaming with FBI agents, and that the woman kept a date the very next day in a courthouse filled with "bailiffs and police and state employees."
The defense attorney also got in his latest hits on the prosecution's molestation timeline, asking the stepfather about the busy days of late February 2003--a time of rebuttal videos and interviews with social workers.
"And to your knowledge, in the middle of all this turmoil, there now is a claim that molestation began sometime on the 20th," Mesereau said. "Is that your knowledge?"
The prosecution objected before the stepfather could attempt an answer.
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