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Updated March 15, 2005, 7:32 p.m. ET

Accuser: I denied being molested by Jackson because of school ridicule
Michael Jackson faces up to 52 years in prison if convicted of all charges in his child molestation trial.

SANTA MARIA, Calif. — Michael Jackson's accuser told jurors Tuesday that he denied the sexual abuse to a school official because he was tired of his classmates' taunts.

"All the kids would laugh at me and try to push me around and say, 'That's the kid who got raped by Michael Jackson,'" the 15-year-old recalled near the end of his fourth and final day on the stand at the music legend's child-molestation trial.

He said that when pressed by the dean of his Los Angeles high school, Jeffrey Alpert, about the allegations, he decided it was better to deny them.

"All the kids were always making fun of me in school, and I didn't want them to think it actually happened," said the teenager, now a high school freshman.


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The account, given under gentle questioning by a prosecutor, provided an explanation for one of the most damaging pieces of information to emerge Monday during a blistering daylong cross-examination by an attorney for Jackson.

But the explanation came only after the defense attorney, Thomas Mesereau Jr., wrapped up his questioning with additional assaults on the credibility of the boy and his family.

Mesereau ridiculed their claims that Jackson and his associates conspired to kidnap them from going to authorities, noting the performer took the teen shopping at Toys 'R' Us with a group of fans and his mother escorted him to the dentist for five hours of orthodontia work.

"Anyone in your family ever complain while you were at the dentist office, 'We're being held against our will?'" the lawyer asked.

"No," the boy said.

Mesereau suggested the accuser was out for the pop icon's money.

"You're aware that if Mr. Jackson is convicted, you could automatically win a civil suit, right?" he said.

"No," the boy said.

"No one's ever discussed that with you?" the lawyer shot back incredulously.

"No. We've said things like, 'Oh, we don't want his money,' and stuff like that," he said.

The defense kept up its attacks on the accuser even after he left the stand, with another of Jackson's attorneys getting the lead prosecution investigator to acknowledge the boy gave contradictory accounts of abuse.

Sgt. Steve Robel of the Santa Barbara Sheriff's Office conceded the teenager initially told him he had been fondled five times by the pop star, not the two incidents he testified to in front of the jury.

Near the end of 12 hours on the stand, the teenager appeared tired. When lead prosecutor Thomas Sneddon asked his final question — his current opinion of Jackson, a man he once considered his best friend — the boy hesitated and then replied, "I don't really like him anymore. I don't really think he deserves the respect I gave him as the coolest guy in the world."

Prosecutors also showed jurors pornography found in Jackson's room by police executing a search warrant. The items included a skin magazine called "Teenage." Its cover showed a young woman baring her breasts under the headline "Barely legal, total filth!"

Robel, who identified photos of the pornography, said it was found in a box at the foot of Jackson's bed and that neither the boy nor his siblings ever reported seeing the items.

Jackson, 46, dressed in a black jacket with a black armband, sat at the defense table as the images were displayed on a large screen in the front of the court. He faces up to 52 years in prison if convicted.

Robel will continue testifying Wednesday morning.

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