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REUTERS Jackson's Lawyers Face Ghosts of Pop Star's Past Sun May 1, 2005 09:17 AM ET By Dan Whitcomb SANTA MARIA, Calif. (Reuters) - Prosecutors are expected to rest their case against Michael Jackson this week after two months portraying him as a man who used his Peter Pan persona and Neverland Valley Ranch to lure young boys into a sordid web of booze, pornography and illicit sex. To clear him, defense lawyers must fight not only the charges of sex abuse, which rest entirely on the testimony of two teenage brothers, but also the implication that the 46-year-old pop singer is a serial molester. Superior Court Judge Rodney Melville ruled prosecutors could call witnesses who told jurors they had seen Jackson's prior sexual conduct with boys, including "Home Alone" star Macaulay Culkin and four others, under a 1995 California law allowing such evidence and written with the singer in mind. "I don't find the prosecution case very compelling, given the particular charges," said Stan Goldman, professor at Loyola Marymount Law School in Los Angeles. "What makes it a potentially winning prosecution case is that Jackson has been painted as a career pedophile. "The jury has to decide two things: Is he a pedophile and did he do this particular crime," Goldman said. "If you bring in evidence of prior offenses you've done two-thirds of the heavy lifting." The law, known as Section 1108 of the California evidence code, was created because cases of sex crime against minors -- which typically rely on the testimony of a single child witness -- are hard to prove and because pedophiles are among the criminals with the highest rate of repeat offenses. The measure was enacted after Jackson paid $23 million in an out-of-court settlement in a 1993 case brought by a teen who accused him of molestation. The boy's mother testified for prosecutors in the current trial. WILL JACKSON TESTIFY? Jackson is charged with four counts of molesting the boy in the current case, then 13, at Neverland in 2003, four counts of plying the youth with alcohol in order to abuse him and one count of conspiring to commit child abduction, extortion and false imprisonment. Though prosecutors will have called more than 80 witnesses, only his young accuser and the boy's brother testified to what they say was molestation. Those counts rest on their credibility. Analysts said testimony that Jackson had engaged in inappropriate conduct with young boys before, however, could make the jurors more likely to believe the brothers. "That evidence is so radioactive that it doesn't just stand on its own; it infects everything else," said former San Francisco prosecutor Jim Hammer, who is following the case as a media analyst. "The case comes down to this: If the jury gives a lot of weight to the 1108 evidence, Jackson has a good chance of being convicted," Hammer said. "If they don't and they just focus on the current case, the prosecution could be in trouble." Lead Jackson attorney Tom Mesereau has vowed to call some of the most famous people in America, including film legend Elizabeth Taylor, basketball star Kobe Bryant and talk-show host Jay Leno in the pop star's defense. He may also summon Culkin, who has said Jackson never behaved improperly. But Mesereau, who hinted during his opening statement that Jackson would testify, must decide soon if he will in fact call the King of Pop to the stand to counter the boy's claims. Criminal defendants are not required to testify and legal experts consider doing so risky -- especially for a defendant like Jackson, who would be cross-examined at length about the past accusations and is known for his erratic behavior. "Putting Jackson on the stand is a real roll of the dice based on his past performance as a witness (in civil cases)," Hammer said. "The biggest risk is that if the jury thought he was lying about something, that could be enough for the prosecution to turn around and win it." 翻译完请发到Godnan@sohu.com Thanx~~

Now It's Jackson's Turn: Will He Testify? By LINDA DEUTSCH, AP Special Correspondent 1 hour, 24 minutes ago SANTA MARIA, Calif. - Michael Jackson has sat silently in court for nine weeks, betraying little reaction as prosecutors laid out their child molestation and conspiracy case against him. Now, with the defense case about to begin, trial watchers wonder if the pop star can resist the temptation to step into the witness stand spotlight and tell the story as he sees it. Conventional legal wisdom is that defendants should not take the stand in criminal trials, but lead defense lawyer Thomas Mesereau Jr. has a history of putting his clients on the stand to speak for themselves. His close friend and associate, attorney Dana Cole, said Mesereau is leaning toward doing the same in Jackson's case. "Tom feels Michael would make a very good witness," Cole said. "He feels it's important for the client to look at the jury and say 'I did not commit this crime.'" "Obviously, he doesn't need to make that decision now. ... But he does want an acquittal, not a hung jury, and to get that he may have to put Michael on the stand." He noted that other lawyers might shrink from opening up their clients to cross-examination by prosecutors. "It can be risky, particularly when your case is going well," said Cole. "It can torpedo your case and give prosecutors the one golden opportunity they have not had." Jackson also has a history of unpredictability, said Loyola University law professor Laurie Levenson, who has attended the trial. "His words have gotten him in trouble before," she said. "If he had never talked about sleeping with boys in his bed, he wouldn't be in court now." In opening statements, Mesereau told jurors twice that they would hear from Jackson on specific issues but did not say that Jackson would testify. Levenson suggests the defense may be planning to present Jackson's side by using outtakes from the famous "Living With Michael Jackson" video, in which Jackson appeared with the boy who now accuses him of molestation and said he allowed children to sleep in his bed but in a non-sexual context. "You can't cross-examine a videotape, and a videotape is dynamite evidence," Levenson said. This past week, Jackson's personal videographer, Hamid Moslehi, testified that he had a camera running at the same time that Martin Bashir had his "Living" documentary crew at work. Moslehi suggested the Bashir video was edited to portray Jackson in a bad light and said footage not used in the broadcast could clarify what Jackson said. Superior Court Judge Rodney Melville refused to let Mesereau show the outtakes during his cross-examination, but said he expected the issue would be raised again during the defense case. In the recent murder trial of Robert Blake, the defense used the actor's TV interview with Barbara Walters to let jurors hear him deny that he killed his wife. Blake did not take the stand and was acquitted. Jackson is accused of molesting a 13-year-old boy in 2003, giving him alcohol and conspiring to hold the boy's family captive to get them to rebut the Bashir documentary. While there are 10 separate counts in the indictment, nine of them dealing directly or indirectly with molestation, the one count that has caused prosecutors the most problems is the one that alleges a conspiracy by Jackson and six unindicted coconspirators to abduct and falsely imprison the boy and his family. That count relies heavily on the testimony of the boy's mother, who claims Jackson associates forced the family to participate in a rehearsed and scripted video praising Jackson. But the mother came under fierce defense attack on the witness stand for her history of lying under oath. Her account was further undermined by testimony from Jackson's ex-wife, Debbie Rowe, that backfired on prosecutors. Rowe said she also made a video but that it was neither scripted nor rehearsed. She denounced Jackson's associates as "opportunistic vultures" who conspired not with him but against him. Before the defense case starts, the prosecution has promised two more days of testimony Monday and Tuesday from unspecified witnesses. 翻译完请发到Godnan@sohu.com Thanx~~

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Online Casino Taking Bets on Michael Jackson Trial 1 May 2005 A real bettor will place a wager on just about anything. The online casinos have taken notice of this fact and are taking bets on the outcome of all sorts of events from presidential elections to celebrity showcase trials. Your favorite online casino may offer a lot more than just traditional casino games. One online casino recently started taking bets on the outcome of the upcoming Michael Jackson trial. Right now they are offering odds on a variety of different possible outcomes to the high profile celebrity case that is gaining a huge amount of attention in the media. Big celebrity trials always get an exaggerated amount of media attention. So it is only logical that an online casino would pick up on the water cooler buzz and post odds on their website predicting the outcome of the trial. Michael Jackson has once again found himself in the spotlight and one online casino is taking bets and placing odds on the outcome of his latest case. High profile trials like that of OJ Simpson and Kobe Bryant usually attract online casinos to post odds on the outcome out the case. Calvin Ayre, the founder and CEO of Bodog dot com recently commented on the high profile trial saying: “Because of the nature of trials in that decisions go one way or the other, they naturally lend themselves to wagering. Not to mention, this is one of the biggest trials in recent history.” Right now one specific online casino is taking bets on three possible outcomes and events that could take place during the Jackson case. Players can bet on whether Michael Jackson will be convicted at the end of this trial. Another option to bet on is whether Michael Jackson will serve a jail sentence for his current trial. And the third bet players can make at the online casinos is whether Michael Jackson will switch his lead attorneys during the present trial as he has done before in the past.

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USA TODAY Jackson defense strategy: 'A lot of witnesses' News analysis by Martin Kasindorf, USA TODAY SANTA MARIA, Calif. — Every morning at the child-molestation trial of pop singer Michael Jackson, his lawyers walk to the courthouse past Jackson fans who are kept behind a chain-link fence. "Dee-fense! Dee-fense!" the fans cheer. The football analogy is apt. Prosecutor Tom Sneddon says he expects to rest his case Tuesday. That shifts the initiative to Jackson's team. After nine weeks of playing defense through cross-examination of more than 80 prosecution witnesses, attorney Tom Mesereau gets to run the offense he promised the jury in his opening statement: a parade of witnesses that could include the celebrity defendant. Already, Mesereau has sought to raise reasonable doubt that Jackson, 46, groped a 13-year-old boy at his Neverland Valley Ranch in 2003 and conspired to falsely imprison the child and his family. A small-town prosecution team has been buffeted by the shakiness of some witnesses under aggressive defense questioning. Still, Mesereau told Santa Barbara County Superior Court Judge Rodney Melville two weeks ago that he plans to call "a lot of witnesses." The statement suggests that despite the prosecution's setbacks, he believes Jackson remains in peril of being convicted and sentenced to up to 20 years in prison. Key testimony against Jackson so far: • The alleged victim and his younger brother claimed that four acts of molestation followed heavy drinking of alcohol served by Jackson. The alleged victim was a cancer patient when Jackson first befriended him in 2000. • The children's mother said Jackson and his aides subjected her family to oppressive "damage control" after a British TV documentary showed him holding hands with the alleged victim and saying he innocently shares his bed with children. She described death threats and a scheme to seclude the family in Brazil. Documents and surreptitious surveillance tapes corroborate parts of her account. • A string of witnesses said Jackson molested five other boys during the 1990s. Those witnesses included former Neverland workers, a young man who received $2 million from Jackson to settle molestation claims, and the mother of another young man who got $15 million from the entertainer. Mesereau bombarded witnesses with inconsistent statements they made earlier. He ridiculed claims by the alleged victim's mother, who said Jackson's managers threatened to abduct her kids via hot-air balloon. Jackson's ex-wife, Debbie Rowe, proved to be so loyal that surprised prosecutors tried to impeach their own witness. Mesereau promised the jury that he'll prove the mother has a pattern of hitting up celebrities for money, and that after failing to get millions of dollars from Jackson she invented molestation stories to win a future civil lawsuit for damages. To nail down those points, Mesereau said or implied that he'll call these witnesses: •Jackson. "Ladies and gentlemen," Mesereau told jurors, "Michael Jackson will tell you, one time he got a very bad feeling and intuition" about the family when the mother asked her children to join hands and pray with "our daddy Michael." Mesereau has won four acquittals after putting child-molestation defendants on the stand. But if he thinks that he is in a strong position, he may choose not to expose the singer to cross-examination. Jackson giggled and waved to spectators when he testified in a 2003 civil case. A Santa Maria jury ordered him to pay a concert promoter $5.3 million. •Other celebrities. Even if Mesereau never summons Elizabeth Taylor, Macaulay Culkin, Kobe Bryant and other famous names on his witness list, he's dropped hints that he'll ask comic Jay Leno, actor Chris Tucker and CNN's Larry King to testify that the alleged victim's mother wanted money. •Neverland loyalists. According to Mesereau, ranch employees will say that the alleged victim and his brother were out of control at Neverland — stealing money and alcohol, breaking into Jackson's bedroom and throwing food from amusement rides. A teenage Jackson cousin named Rio, whose last name has not been divulged, will say he caught the alleged victim and his brother masturbating in a ranch guest unit at about the time they claim Jackson masturbated his accuser, Mesereau says. Mesereau has said he'll call welfare officials to say the mother perjured herself in seeking public assistance. She invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination at the trial to avoid questions on the subject. Her ex-husband may be called to say she coached the children to lie in a lawsuit in which she alleged that J.C. Penney guards sexually abused her. And Mesereau says he'll show tape from Jackson's personal videographer to demonstrate that a British journalist omitted part of the singer's remarks about sleeping with children in the documentary. 翻译完请发到Godnan@sohu.com Thanx~~~

Shields Bonded with Jackson over Childhood By WENN ............................................ Brooke Shields formed close friendships with Michael Jackson and Jodie Foster during her childhood after they bonded over the difficulties of growing up in the public spotlight. The 38-year-old actress, who made her screen debut when she was 12 in Pretty Baby, depended on her famous pals for comfort, because they were the only two people equipped to help her battle the downsides of fame. Shields says, "I met him (Jackson) when I was 13. There were a handful of child stars at the time--actress Jodie Foster, Michael and myself among them--and we were friends because we shared an understanding of how difficult life was in the public eye. "When we were together, we were in a safe place. We could be ourselves."

"Michael’s Promethean Revenge" By John Karrys "The show must go on. The incredible shrinking timelines are dancing with the parade of testimony from the prosecution’s witnesses. The brilliant and talented Tom Sneddon has accomplished the unthinkable in such a short period of time. This maestro of justice and his prodigious team of protégés have masterfully demonstrated that the child molestation allegations against Michael Jackson are completely false. Those other charges are just smokescreens. If you are among the envious, the cynical or the parasitical or if you have decided to follow the herd and publicly judge and profit like a parasite rather than a producer, I must say that that karma is coming to a nightmare near you. Parasitic vultures have masticated Michael’s reputation in the hope that he would one day break. You, the parasite, were wrong about Michael and the Jackson family. With the help of the State and establishment Media, these socio-pathic storm troopers have failed to break Michael’s spirit or tarnish the Jackson name indefinitely. They have tried with every advantage available and, no matter how hard they try, they won’t get that satisfaction that only an envious parasite is constantly hungry for. Let us not forget, this is a family from Gary, Indiana. That’s an extremely tough town, one of the most dangerous in the nation. It has always been a tough town. One has to be exceptionally tough to fight your way out. Michael’s has undergone phenomenal military-type training, under two disciplinarian perfectionists, his father, Joseph Jackson and Berry Gordy. Visit the Motown Museum, read the history of the training those artists received and when you’re standing in the actual recording studio, imagine the gut wrenching discipline and backbreaking work that was required to produce the songs we now take for granted. Michael has gone through all the rites of passage that a warrior must take to prepare for the Leviathan State scrutiny such as this. Tom Sneddon miscalculated on that resilient Jackson faith. In an attempt to aid and abet the District Attorney, in what appears to be a series of crimes, the establishment media have invested and committed a pivotal error in choosing to be a propaganda pusher for the State’s half-truths. Legally, retribution is on the way. In the court of public opinion, revenge will proceed accordingly. All of Sneddon’s cases, as well as certain journalists’ ethical conduct will have to be reviewed. Finally, Michael Jackson’s innocence will be heard, seen and experienced. Principled prosecutors across America know this case is dead. Law professors are at a loss for words, as they struggle to explain to their students, as to why this case was even brought to court. Good pundits across America are introspecting as to what made them so quickly believe Tom Sneddon as they revisit in their notes, their cognitive framework as well as the overwhelming number of prosecution witnesses that alarmingly became defence witnesses. Michael Jackson is a self-made man who has triumphed through the labyrinth of parasites. After all of this salacious slandering, he is still standing proud with a passion to add more value to the human experience. At this point, after all of these extensive investigations, Michael Jackson is an innocent man whose natural rights and dignity have been raped for twelve tortuous years. The defence that is to follow is Michael’s Promethean revenge. Can you feel the anticipation? Some may love it and some will loathe it. It’s all a matter of conscience. Nonetheless, it is this concert of justice that innocent self-made people around the world are ready to receive. Some will dance and some will cry. Americans need to feel that fire of freedom, once again, instead of tolerating the perpetual service."

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A problematic timeline for the prosecution Jackson prosecutors allege that the panic over the negative publicity preceeded the molestation By Dan Abrams Host, "The Abrams Report" Updated: 3:44 p.m. ET May 6, 2005The prosecution in the Jackson case rested Wednesday, and the defense case is off to a start. But the most crucial issue in the case might be the timeline, which I think is a big problem for prosecutors. February 3, 2003: It starts when that damning documentary aired in England. The accuser and Jackson talk about sleeping next to the each other on the bed. The actual accuser in this case on that video. There are no allegations that Jackson had abused the boy yet, but prosecutors say the fallout and negative publicity from that video prompted Jackson to abduct, imprison, and extort the family and the accuser in order to have them say nice things about Jackson on tape. February 6, 2003: The documentary airs in the U.S.. Prosecutors say in the days following the airing, Jackson's associates coerced the accuser's mother into doing a rebuttal video praising Jackson. They claim that they told her it's the only way to insure her family's safety. February 16:, 2003: Defense investigator Bradley Miller then interviewed the family. The mother says Michael is wonderful, kind, unselfish. And what about the abuse? She says nothing improper ever happened, nothing out of the ordinary, nothing sexual. February 19, 2003: The family again praised Jackson in the rebuttal video filmed by Jackson's associate. The mother said “We were destitute, had nowhere to turn. Michael Jackson rescued us.” Now prosecutors say it was all scripted, an allegation the defense denies. February 20, 2003: The family tells the Department of Children and Family Services that Jackson had done nothing inappropriate. Again, the mother says after the fact that she was coerced into saying nice things. But even prosecutors aren't alleging any molestation had occurred yet. They say it starts after that video has already been made. The indictment alleges the lewd acts all happened after the rebuttal video between February 20 and March the 12th. The defense is expected to try and narrow that timeline significantly to question how it could have happened in that period. I think, just as a matter of common sense, that this timeline is the hardest thing for prosecutors. These jurors may go back there and they may say, “Wait a second. So he is forcing the family to make a rebuttal video and say nice things even though there hadn't been any abuse at that time? Maybe they would have said nice things anyway.” The timeline shows that the prosecution's case is that because of the panic over negative publicity, they forced this family to say that “no molestation had occurred” when it hadn't occurred, and then Michael Jackson gets over his panic just long enough to molest the child when the entire world is watching.