Jackson judge threatens to close court
Accuser's mother, singer's attorney have combative exchange
Friday, April 15, 2005 Posted: 4:21 PM EDT (2021 GMT)
SANTA MARIA, California (CNN) -- Exchanges between the mother of Michael Jackson's accuser and the pop star's lead defense attorney were so combative Friday that the judge threatened to end court for the day after listening to hours of sniping between the witness and lawyer.
"Do you want me to shut the trial down this afternoon?" Santa Barbara County Superior Court Judge Rodney Melville said after one exchange between the prosecution and defense over the woman's testimony. "You are not to engage in this kind of interaction with each other, or the witness."
Throughout defense attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr.'s grilling of the mother, she sparred with him, frequently addressing jurors directly to offer her unsolicited, and unvarnished, opinions about Jackson's lead lawyer.
After Melville struck a comment she made about her faithful religious observance, she turned to the jury, pointed at Mesereau and said, "He doesn't want you to know."
"Two years I've been waiting for this," she said.
The defense, too, has been waiting for a chance to question the accuser's mother, portraying her as the greedy villain at the hub of the child molestation allegations against the entertainer.
Challenged by Mesereau about why she was still praising Jackson at a time in February 2003 when she says she and her family were under siege from his associates, she insisted that at the time she was "still clueless" and thought Jackson was "still a good guy."
"Now I know that Neverland is all about booze, pornography and sex with boys," she said -- a remark that also was stricken. Neverland Ranch is Jackson's estate where the boy alleges the singer molested him.
In another contentious exchange, the mother told Mesereau that she had done an "inadequate" job on a videotape rebutting a damaging documentary that Jackson's camp wanted her to make because "I'm a poor actress."
"I think you're a good one," Mesereau retorted -- prompting Melville to tell the attorney that he expected more professional conduct. Melville also told the mother to answer Mesereau's questions and stop arguing with him.
Mesereau also ridiculed the mother's contention that she never pursued offers of money from tabloids because "it's not my nature."
"I understand. We'll get to the J.C. Penney case in a couple of hours," he said, referring to a 2000 lawsuit in which the mother collected $152,000 from the retailer after alleging she was manhandled by security guards.
A grand jury indicted the 46-year-old Jackson last year on charges of molesting a boy -- now 15 -- giving him alcohol and conspiring to hold him and his family captive in 2003. Jackson has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The accuser's name is being withheld because it is CNN's policy not to reveal the names of the underage accuser or members of his family.
Woman plays down accusation against husband
Under questioning by prosecutors, the mother had testified that Jackson and his associates had convinced her that unidentified "killers" were after the family, following the accuser's appearance with Jackson in a February 2003 television documentary.
However, the mother admitted that in a phone call with Jackson associate Frank Tyson, recorded during that period, she never mentioned any death threats.
The mother also admitted Friday that she once told police that her ex-husband had inappropriately touched their daughter after officers were called to their home to respond to a report of domestic violence.
However, the woman seemed to try to play down the accusation, saying, "It was a one-sentence statement" given to officers from the Los Angeles Police Department after "they asked for a history" of problems in the family.
Mesereau also pressed the woman about a child welfare investigation back in the 1990s, triggered after her son -- the accuser -- alleged she had abused him.
The mother said the probe by the state Division of Children and Family Services began after a school nurse wanted to send her son home early, and the boy expressed reluctance to go. The nurse, interpreting the conversation as a sign of possible abuse, called DCFS, the mother said.
She said no action was ever taken against her, and she described her interaction with the DCFS caseworkers as "positive."
Surveillance tapes shown to jury
The mother's cross-examination began Friday morning, after prosecutors completed their questioning of her by showing surveillance videotapes found in the office of Brad Miller, a private investigator working for Jackson's former attorney, Mark Geragos.
One of those videotapes, shot in March 2003, showed the family's belongings being packed up and moved from their apartment in Los Angeles, around the time the mother said Jackson's associates were preparing to send them to Brazil.
The mother, who insists she never authorized moving the family out of the apartment, identified a Jackson security guard named Asef as the person shooting the tape.
Other tapes showed the outside of her parents' home in the Los Angeles suburb of El Monte, including shots of her mother and father, and the parking garage of the apartment complex where her boyfriend lived, along with footage of him walking in a nearby neighborhood.
During her testimony Thursday, the mother testified that during a campaign by Jackson's associates to get her to help with damage-control efforts, a car followed her wherever she went. One of the tapes -- shot from a vehicle that followed another vehicle carrying her and another Jackson associate -- appeared to corroborate that testimony.
Both the mother and her then-boyfriend, now her husband, have testified that in the months after their final break with Jackson, they were harassed and followed by his associates and security guards.
Footage shown in court Friday, shot less than a week after the family left Neverland for the final time, showed the woman's daughter walking to her grandparents' house after school. Several times, the girl looked back toward the camera, apparently aware of the surveillance.
"She looks scared," the mother said -- a remark that was stricken after the defense objected.
CNN's Dree De Clamecy contributed to this report.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/04/15/jackson....rial/index.html
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