Will Jackson Moonwalk to Freedom or to Jail?

ByABC News
May 3, 2005, 9:43 AM

May 4, 2005 — -- While testimony that Michael Jackson molested or behaved inappropriately with five other boys besides his current accuser has been damaging to "The King of Pop," it may not be enough to convict him of child molestation, some court observers say.

"I thought they [the previous allegations] were going to be devastating for the defense. I thought they were going to wipe Jackson out and it hasn't," said Steve Cron, a California-based criminal defense attorney. "Virtually all the witnesses -- and by that I mean the former Neverland employees -- who testified about the prior bad acts benefited financially from the allegations."

Santa Barbara County, Calif. prosecutors rested their case today against Jackson, pending the judge's decision on whether to admit several items into evidence. Jackson, 46, is on trial for allegedly molesting a now-15-year-old boy who spent time at his Neverland ranch and appeared with him in the 2003 British documentary "Living With Michael Jackson." He has pleaded not guilty to 10 charges that include felony conspiracy with 28 overt acts involving child abduction, false imprisonment and extortion.

In addition to the current alleged victim, jurors have heard allegations that Jackson molested or behaved inappropriately with five other boys, including former child star Macaulay Culkin and two youngsters who reached multimillion-dollar settlements with the singer in the 1990s. Jackson was never criminally charged for those allegations and has always denied any wrongdoing. Judge Rodney S. Melville ruled last month that prosecutors could present the testimony about the allegations. A change in California law in 1996 regarding sex crime cases allowed prosecutors to present testimony on alleged bad acts or propensity evidence in Jackson's trial.

Any advantage Santa Barbara County prosecutors gained with the testimony about the similar past allegations against Jackson will be challenged when the defense launches its case. Jackson's attorneys will start their case by calling two boys who are expected to deny prosecution claims that Jackson touched them inappropriately in the past, sources told ABC News. Culkin, who has repeatedly denied that anything inappropriate happened with Jackson, is expected to be called by the defense later in its case, sources told ABC News.

"If a celebrity of Culkin's stature gets up on the stand and tells jurors, 'Listen, I slept over at Jackson's house and nothing happened. Michael Jackson is a good guy and we just played video games,' that could go a long way to persuading jurors. But we'll see," said Ronald Carlson, professor at the University of Georgia School of Law.

Former Jackson maid Adrian McManus and former bodyguards Ralph Chacon and Kassim Abdool all testified that they saw Jackson behave inappropriately with other boys.

McManus told jurors she saw Jackson touch three boys inappropriately and saw boys' underwear alongside Jackson's in a Jacuzzi inside his master bedroom. Chacon testified that he saw Jackson perform a sex act on a boy believed to be the 1993 accuser and Abdool corroborated part of Chacon's account and said he saw the singer and the boy leaving a Jacuzzi area where their swimsuits were lying on the floor. He said he saw Jackson -- who was wearing a towel -- give a piggyback ride to the boy, who wore a bathrobe.

The defense pointed to inconsistencies in their accounts, and suggested McManus, Chacon and Abdool had motive to lie because they were part of a failed civil suit against Jackson and were ordered to pay him more than $1 million for costs and legal fees. The witnesses acknowledged they sold their stories to a supermarket newspaper tabloid and that the proceeds were used to help pay their legal fees for the ill-fated lawsuit.

"They had motive to lie and some of them sold their stories to the tabloids," Cron said. "None of them filed a report with law enforcement. They all had problems with their credibility."

However, the prosecution's most compelling testimony against Jackson arguably came from the 1990 accuser, his mother and the mother of the 1993 alleged victim. (The 1993 accuser did not testify.)