SANTA MARIA, Calif. – The King of Pop will take the stand to deny charges he molested a cancer patient with one kidney after plying the boy with sexually explicit magazines and booze, his lawyer strongly hinted Tuesday.
With the words “Michael Jackson will tell you …” in the second day of his opening statement, defense lawyer Tom Mesereau signaled he expects the singer will testify to personally refute what he called “fictitious, bogus … fake, silly” charges.
“Michael Jackson will tell you that one time at Neverland he had a very bad feeling” that the accuser and his family might be setting him up, Mesereau said.
Jackson got the creeps because the mother encouraged the kids to call him “Daddy Michael” and said things like, “If we didn’t have Michael, we wouldn’t have a father figure in our lives,” the lawyer said.
He pledged Jackson will also explain how his prints got on the same magazine that bears the prints of the then-13-year-old accuser.
“Michael Jackson will freely admit he reads girlie magazines,” including Playboy and Hustler, but he didn’t share them with kids, Mesereau told the jury.
The accuser and his younger brother got into Jackson’s porn stash on their own, Mesereau insisted.
“Mr. Jackson found those kids with the magazines,” the lawyer said. “He took them away and locked them in a briefcase.”
Mesereau’s apparent pledge to jurors that they will hear from Jackson came one day after he vowed to “fulfill every promise” made in his opening statement.
Jackson spokeswoman Raymone Bain would only say “it’s a possibility” that Jackson will testify.
Mesereau also said he would prove the “out of control” brothers “broke into the wine cellar at Neverland” and were “caught breaking into the refrigerator in the kitchen” to steal alcohol when the singer wasn’t even at his California ranch.
Once the wild boys even cranked up the Ferris wheel there on their own and were caught “throwing objects at the elephants and people” from atop the ride, he said.
Jackson occasionally nodded and looked satisfied as his lawyer described the kids’ sneaky bad behavior.
Prosecutors called as their first witness British TV journalist Martin Bashir, whose ABC television documentary “Living with Michael Jackson” caused a public relations disaster for the pop star.
But after jurors were shown the entire 90-minute tape, Bashir repeatedly refused to answer defense questions about the tactics he used to persuade Jackson to be part of the show.
Mesereau read from fawning letters Bashir wrote in which he said Jackson was “underappreciated” and referred to Neverland as “a beautiful landscape encouraging all of us to become little children again.”
Bashir invoked the journalist’s shield law to avoid answering dozens of questions.
As he was leaving court, a frustrated Jackson was asked how he felt. At first he said “I can’t,” then he said “Good” and finally he blurted out “Angry.”
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(c) 2005, New York Daily News.
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Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
AP-NY-03-01-05 2212EST
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