Will Jackson Moonwalk to Freedom or to Jail?

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.

The Alleged Bad Intentions of Former Neverland Employees

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."

Past Accusations Haunt the Jackson Defense

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.)

The 1990 accuser -- who received a reported $2.4 million settlement from Jackson in 1994 -- tearfully testified that tickling games with Jackson ended with the singer touching him in his groin -- twice through the outside of his shorts and once directly. He said Jackson gave him two $100 bills on separate occasions and told him not to tell his mother.

None of the accusers' mothers said she witnessed Jackson molest her son. But each indicated she had concerns about the friendship with Jackson. The mother of the 1990 accuser, who was Jackson's maid for five years, said she became concerned when she saw the singer and her son inside the same sleeping bag. Her concerns, she said, mounted when she found her son with two $100 bills and he told her about Jackson's instructions about the money.

The mother of the 1993 alleged victim -- who reportedly received more than $20 million in an out-of-court settlement from Jackson -- told the jury she went against her instincts and allowed her son to share a bedroom with Jackson more than 30 times on trips and in her own home.

She said she accepted lavish gifts from Jackson, but later regretted her decision. Her son, she said, gradually became more withdrawn and stopped communicating with her.

However, she said she never suspected Jackson of wrongdoing until her son finally told his father that he had been molested. Holding back tears, she told jurors that she had not talked to her son in 11 years -- and that that was not by her choice.

Is Everyone Out to Get 'The King of Pop's' Money?

During cross-examination, Jackson defense attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr. questioned the 1990 accuser about inconsistencies in his account. The defense argued that the 1990 accuser, the 1993 accuser and their families all benefited financially from allegations that Jackson has denied.

But some legal experts say those arguments were not effective with these witnesses.

"That argument -- they were out to get Jackson's money, they were in it for the money -- did not work as well with these witnesses," said Carlson. "Jurors might think that not everyone can be out to get his money and might just think that when there's this much smoke, there's got to be fire."

In addition, Carlson said, the testimony about the failed lawsuit by Neverland employees may not only undermine their credibility but Jackson's as well.

"Jurors may think, 'Oh, well he has no problem fighting a lawsuit when it involves employees' wages or employees allegedly stealing from him,' " he said. "So why didn't he fight these [past molestation] allegations if he wasn't guilty?"

Lingering Questions About Current Jackson Accuser and His Family

Some critics of the prosecution say the prior similar bad act testimony was used to deflect defense questions about the credibility of Jackson's current accuser and his family.

Jackson's defense has argued the alleged victim in the current case and his family made up the allegations against him to get money from him. Pointing to a 2001 civil lawsuit against J.C. Penney that ended in a $137,500 out-of-court settlement, Jackson's defense argued that the family has a history of making false allegations to get money. The alleged victim's mother, the defense has suggested, coached her children into making up the charges against Jackson.

Arguably, the mother's credibility was damaged before her testimony began, as Melville told jurors that she had invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination on perjury and welfare fraud allegations. Santa Barbara County District Attorney Tom Sneddon said in opening statements that the mother would admit she took welfare payments to which she was not entitled.

Court observers described her behavior and testimony as sometimes bizarre, often erratic, rambling and combative.

"I would not have let her anywhere near the case," Kimberly Guilfoyle, an ABC News legal contributor and a former prosecutor, said in a past report.

Some courtroom observers believed the testimony of the accuser and his siblings was also not as strong as the prosecution had hoped.

The alleged victim's sister testified that Jackson served her and her brothers alcohol and held her and her family virtual hostages of Neverland after "Living With Michael Jackson" aired. But the defense cast doubt on her credibility when it showed a video made after the British documentary -- and the alleged abuse -- that shows members of the family praising Jackson. The sister told the court the praise was coerced.

The brother of the accuser -- the only eyewitness to alleged molestation -- told jurors he saw Jackson fondle his brother. But the cross-examination by Mesereau showed several inconsistencies in the boy's several different accounts of the alleged incident. The accuser's brother also admitted that he lied in a deposition for the lawsuit against J.C. Penney.

In addition, the accuser -- a cancer survivor -- may not have appeared as sympathetic as the prosecution hoped with what some observers described as a combative, sarcastic attitude in courtroom exchanges with Mesereau.

"He and his siblings were not the best witnesses," Cron said. "The brother and the sister had various contradictions and they contradicted each other. The accuser may have offset any sympathy he might have had as a cancer survivor with his kind of sarcastic attitude with Mesereau."

Molestation Waters Get Muddied

Other critics say prosecutors should have not proceeded with the conspiracy charge against Jackson because it is so difficult to prove and it diverted jurors' attention away from the more serious molestation case.

The conspiracy charge against Jackson refers to alleged attempts by him and his associates to hold the alleged victim and his family virtually hostage after the broadcast of "Living With Michael Jackson" and coerce favorable testimonials about Jackson from them in a rebuttal video. The prosecution presented surveillance tapes taken by Jackson's private detectives of the accuser and his family in court as alleged proof of conspiracy.

Jackson's defense argued the mother and her children were free to come and go, and repeatedly returned to Neverland after the airing of "Living With Michael Jackson." The defense plans to present receipts to suggest the accuser and his family were not falsely imprisoned at all and that they were indulging themselves at Jackson's expense, sources told ABC News.

The alleged victim's mother was considered a key witness in the conspiracy aspect of the case, but experts said she did not help the prosecution and only cast further doubt on her son and his siblings. Melville denied a prosecution request to present an expert on Battered Wife's Syndrome to explain the mother's behavior.

"If she was the best that the prosecution could offer [in the conspiracy case], then maybe they shouldn't have presented the case," Cron said. "She had an awful lot of baggage and I think it could carry over on her kids."

Not-So-Supportive Prosecution Witnesses

Some witnesses also contradicted the prosecution's own theory in their conspiracy arguments and other aspects of their case. In his opening statements, Sneddon told jurors that Debbie Rowe, Jackson's ex-wife and mother of two of his children, would testify that her praise of the singer as a father and humanitarian in a video was "completely scripted."

"Debbie Rowe will tell you her interview also was completely scripted," he said on Feb. 28. "They scripted that interview just like they scripted the [accuser's mother's] interview."

But Rowe told jurors her videotaped statements were not rehearsed, saying "No one can tell me what to say." Rowe did concede she had not been completely truthful in some of her statements, including her praise of the singer's parenting skills. But she called Jackson "a great person and a great father" and said some of his associates were "vultures" who were trying to exploit him.

"She didn't give the prosecutors what they said she would say back in their opening statement," said Laurie Levenson, professor at Loyola School of Law in Los Angeles. "She didn't say she was scripted. She didn't say she was forced into giving this interview. It was something she appeared to give out of her all of her heart because she cared about Michael, and she cared about her kids."

Rowe was not the only witness whose testimony did not follow what prosecutors may have expected. Former videographer Hamid Moslehi, who made the rebuttal video, said he did not see the accuser and his family work from a script, memorize lines or see anyone tell them what to say. Flight attendant Cynthia Bell testified the accuser -- to the surprise of some courtroom observers -- was disruptive, unruly and ill-mannered, and said that it been her idea, not Jackson's, to serve wine in soda cans. Other witnesses have contradicted Bell, however.

Hollywood Walk of Potential Witnesses

In addition to Culkin and the two boys who are expected to deny prosecution claims that Jackson touched them inappropriately, Jackson's defense may present various character witnesses on the singer's behalf, and many of them may represent a who's-who of Hollywood. Stevie Wonder, Kobe Bryant and Elizabeth Taylor were among those listed on the defense's potential witness list.

Another anticipated witness on the list could be "The Tonight Show" host Jay Leno. ABC News has reported that he told investigators that he suspected the alleged victim and his family were attempting to scam him for money.

The crucial lingering question is whether Jackson himself will take the stand. In opening statements, Mesereau appeared to hint to jurors that "The King of Pop" would testify, twice using the phrase, "Michael will tell you …"

Some critics argue that the testimony about previous similar allegations will force Jackson to take the stand and that jurors will want to hear his side of the story in his own words.

But Jackson, other observers say, could be his own worst enemy. His famous comment in "Living With Michael Jackson" that he shared a bed with other people's children -- though, he insisted, in a nonsexual way -- set forward the events that ultimately led to his trial. On the stand, prosecutors would have a chance to repeatedly confront him about the past and present allegations involving him and his current accuser and five other boys.

"I would be willing to bet that Mesereau really regrets saying those words," Cron said. "Jackson is such a loose cannon. He can really lose it [the case] for his defense."