Originally posted by MJJF
Savannah reports:
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Hi, Lisa. Well, cross-examination is still going on right now. But court's over for the day. I'll tell you some of the highlights that have come out. Tom Mesereau started predictably with the interview that this boy's mother gave back in 1993 to "Hard Copy" for which she was paid $20,000. He said he later found out his mother received money for it. He's really hitting hard on this prior interview he gave in 1993 at the age of about 13 to police. And Mesereau has asked about 10 million different ways how the boy initially denied that Michael Jackson ever touched him. And the theme of this defense cross is, is that "these police were leaning hard on you." And in fact, at one point on the tape, the accuseer acknowledged that he said [to police], "you guys are pushy." But the boy on the stand said, "that's right. That's right. I denied it at first. I was fighting it with everything I had." And later he said, "yeah, I said no, this didn't happen to me. I didn't want them to think I was gay." He went on and on saying, you know, "yes, that's true, I didn't tell the truth at first because I was so afraid, I didn't want to talk about it, I didn't want to think about it." Mesereau also talked about the settlement that the boy received. Talking about how his mother reached out to lawyers. The lawyers reached out to her. And he said, isn't it true that your mother demanded money, or she was going to sue Michael Jackson. And [witness] said, "you know, I didn't really know too much about that. I was 13." Mesereau said, "but you're 24 now. Certainly you know you got a settlement?" And he said, yes, at 17 I learned we had received some money because of this. Michael Jackson is mostly staring straight ahead. But today for the first time in court, it really seems to be that he was looking over at the jurors. I could really see the full side of his face. He was looking in that direction. He has to look over through the prosecutors to look at the jurors so I don't know for a fact, but he seemed to be looking in that direction more than usual. One other thing, there was a point at which Tom Mesereau kind of made a sarcastic remark and said, "so what, the cops just showed up? You didn't say anything about this to anybody and one day the cops showed up at your house?" And the fans in the public gallery let out this big roar of laughter. And the judge said, "wait a minute, wait a minute. I'm not having that. You're not laughing. Stop it." Admonishing the gallery.
