THANKS TO MJJF - JAY LENO, May 24, 2005

Comedian Jay Leno was sworn in and lead defence counsel Tom Mesereau conducted the direct examination. Mr Mesereau asks Leno about his work with children and childrens organisation where he volunteers his time. It was established that Leno works wth organisation such as the ‘Make-A-Wish’ foundation where mostly he would be asked to call up children who are either ill or lonely and have a conversation with them and in some instances meet them physically and grant their wishes like taking a ride in Lamborghini to having a back stage tour of the Tonight Show set. Leno stated that he is quite accessible where anyone can call him up on his Tonight Show number and speak with him. Mr Mesereau then proceeded to inquire Leno about Jamie Masada, his comedy club and about his relationship with comic Louise Palanaker. Q. Do you know someone named Jamie Masada? A. Yes, Jamie owns The Laugh Factory, a comedy club in Hollywood. Q. Have you known him for a long time? A. Yes. I’m not -- I don’t -- I tend to work some of the other clubs. I don’t work his club very often. I’ve been doing this a long time, so I had some clubs that I worked. And then he opened up, and he was sort of the new club. And I kind of stuck with the clubs that I worked all the time. But, yes, I know him. Yeah. Q. And would it be accurate to say he’s a friend of yours? A. Well, an acquaintance, yeah. A “friend” is all right. He’s asked me for favors and things, yeah. “Friend” is okay. Q. Is he a close friend? A. No, I wouldn’t say close friend. Q. Do you go to The Laugh Factory often? A. No, not very often. Q. When were you last there, if you remember? A. Oh, maybe a year ago. Not quite a year ago. A comedian, George Miller, had passed away, and there was -- they had a little service for him with a bunch of comics, and we all went down and told some jokes. I think that was about a year or so ago. Maybe a little bit longer. And occasionally -- Jamie does a lot of benefits, and he’ll say, “Oh, could you come down and do 15 minutes or something?” And that’s usually what it was. I don’t work there but I’ll go down and do benefits andthings. Q. Do you know someone named Louise Palanker? 11697 A. Yeah, Louise is a comedian. Yeah. Q. Is she a friend of yours? A. Yes, I’ve known Louise for a long time. Q. And would you describe her as a close friend? A. No, not a close friend, but an acquaintance. Mesereau then questioned Leno about a call he received a couple of years ago from Gavin Arvizo. Leno stated that due to the fact that it was a long time ago he can not recall nor distinguish each call too clearly but remember Louise Palanker telling him that the boy was very happy to hear from him. Received a call from Gavin around the year 2000 at the time where Leno’s underastanding was that the boy was suffering from cancer. Leno spoke briefly to the mother of the boy as he recalls when he called the hospital. Found out about a Gavin Arvizo from the voice messages left in the answering machine and can’t quite recall whether he received the number to call the hospital from the messages or from Louise Palanker. Leno describes his first phone conversation with Gavin Arvizo where he also spoke briefly to his mother. Q. Do you recall what Gavin said to you? A. The conversation in the hospital? Or any of the voice mails? Q. Well, let’s start with the voice mails. A. Okay. The voice mails I got were, “Oh, I’m a big fan. You’re the greatest.” Overly effusive for a 12-year-old. Most of the times when you talk to children,they talk like, “Hi, how are you doing. Uh, good to see you.” Yeah, I mean, it’s -- you kind of have to pull it out of them: “Hi, how you feeling?” “Good. Hi.” I mean, you’re talking to a kid. And this was -- sounded -- very adult-like conversation. I thought -- it just, you know, perked my interest at the time. Q. When you say “overly effusive,” what do youmean? A. “Jay Leno, you’re the greatest.” You know, “I think you’re wonderful. You’re my hero,” this type of thing, which seemed a little odd to me at the time, for someone so young. Why a comedian in his mid-50s would be -- you know, I’m not Batman. You know what I mean? It just seemed a little unusual, but okay.And then I got two or three more. Q. Okay. Were the two or three more messages from Gavin, as far as you know? A. Yes. Q. Did you ever get any messages from anyone who claimed to be Gavin’s mother? A. No. I didn’t get any from the mother. Just from the child. Q. Okay. And based on those messages you then called the hospital? A. Called the hospital. And I believe I sent, you know, hat, T-shirts, that type of thing. Q. Okay. And you spoke to Gavin at the hospital, right? A. Again, to the best of my knowledge, I did. Whether he was groggy, or in bed, or “Hi, uh, uh.” And then I spoke to someone else. And then I believe I spoke to the mother, who seemed very pleased that I called. Q. Do you recall what the mother said to you? A. No. Very general. “Thank you so much.”And, you know, my conversation was along the line, you know, “Our prayers are with you,” that type of thing. And, “If he gets out, and he’d like to tour the Tonight Show studios...,” you know, that type of thing. Q. Was that the only time you recall speaking to Gavin? A. Yes, I believe that is. Q. And was that the only time you recall speaking to the mother? A. Yes, I believe so. Jay Leno continuing with his testimony claimed that he received many messages left in his voice mail by this boy and was unsure whether he received the number to call the boy from his messages left in the answering machine or whether he received it from Louise Palanker. Mr Mesereau questioned Leno further. Leno who was suspicious about the effusive and mature boy, voiced his concern to Louise Palanker who said would “take care” of it. The calls then subsequently stopped. Q. BY MR. MESEREAU: At some point did you ask that Gavin stop calling? A. I asked Louise, I said, you know, “I’ve been getting a lot” -- I don’t think I said, “Stop calling.” But I said, you know, “I’ve been getting a lot of these calls.” And she said, “Oh, I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry about it.”And I said, “Okay.” Q. When you said that to Louise, was it your desire that those calls stop? A. Yes. Q. And why was that? A. Um, because it was kind of the same call, sort of over and over again. During cross examination by Zonen, Leno states that he corroborated the Gavin he spoke with on the phone a lot to the Gavin that was in the “Living With Michael Jackson” documentary that he watched. Zonen’s next line of questioning tried to establish that Gavin Arvizo’s effusive language and frequent calls were consistent with a boy who aspired to be a comedian himself and was a big comic fan. However, Zonen’s questioning was met with objections which were sustained. Zonen questioned Leno’s knowledge about Gavin Arvizo contacting other comedians like Adam Sandler and being part of the Jamie Masada owned Laugh Factory, a comedy club for underpriviledged children. Leno states that he found out about all if that, later. Prior to ending cross examination with Leno, Zonen questions whether Gavin Arvizo or any of his family members asked Leno for money and he replies, No and that he didn’t send anything other than “Tonight Show” paraphernalia. Several rounds of redirect and recross begin. Recross with Mr Mesereau proceeded in the following manner Q. Mr. Leno, when the police called you -- A. Uh-huh. Q. -- did they call you at the studio? A. Called me at the studio, yeah. Q. Did you know you were being secretly recorded? A. No. Q. Did you ever learn that? A. Yeah, I did learn that actually. Q. Do you remember when the police asked you if they were looking for money, you said, “I think so”? A. Yeah, I probably did say that. But they never asked me for any money. But at the time when I got the phone calls, originally, it sounded – as I said, it sounded suspicious. When a young person that overly effusive, and, “Oh, Mr. Leno, you’re the greatest. And you’re” --I thought, really? Why would -- it just didn’t quite click for me, you know. Q. And you thought they were looking for money, right? MR. ZONEN: I’m going to object as asked and answered and improper opinion. THE COURT: Sustained. MR. MESEREAU: No further questions. During Re cross Mr Zonen further tried to establish the fact that Gavin’s behaviour on the phone is in line with a child who has a serious appreciation with comedy. However, Leno wasn’t aware of all this at the time of conversation with Gavin Arvizo. Q by ZONEN. You did not know at the time of those voice messages that this is a child who had been a graduate of The Laugh Factory, laugh academy; is that correct? A. No, I didn’t know, because, as I said, it was unusual to have a 12-year-old child leave you along voice message. In the kind of business I’m in, you hear from a lot of crazy people, you know. And things -- and you’re reluctant sometimes to follow up. But whenever it’s a child, I always do follow up. You kind of drop all your guard, and go, okay,let me just -- because this might be real, you know. So that’s what I did here. Q. When you actually had the conversation with Gavin, was he gracious on the telephone? A. Again, that recollection is not clear to me. Because having spoken to a number of children in the hospital, you know, four or five a week sometimes, sometimes it kind of -- especially when children are sick, you tend to have a very general conversation along the lines of, you know, “Our prayers are with you.” And, you know, “Your parents love you.” And, you know, “When you get out,” you know, “maybe you’ll be able to do this,” or “Come to our show, and we’ll give you a VIP seat,” and -- you know, so you tend to talk in very general terms, so I can’t be real specific about that. Q. Could you have been speaking with a nurse when you were talking with Gavin at the hospital? MR. MESEREAU: Objection; calls for speculation. THE COURT: Sustained. During Re-direct Mr Mesereau questioned Leno about his knowledge of the Arvizo’s contacting many celebrities and also about fund raisers held for the boy at the Laugh Factory. The questions were met with objections from Zonen, which were sustained.