SANTA MARIA, Calif. — Michael Jackson has been charged with plying his accuser with alcohol as a prelude to sexually molesting him, but a second defense witness testified Tuesday that she once caught the boy pilfering from Jackson's wine stash.

"I saw them take wine," 16-year-old Simone Pech Jackson, the pop star's cousin, said of Jackson's 13-year-old accuser and his 11-year-old brother. "They each had a bottle."

It was about 1 a.m., Simone said, and she was quietly playing video games during a three-day March 2003 visit to Jackson's Neverland ranch when the two boys walked into the kitchen.

"They didn't see me. I was sitting to the side," Simone said. "[The accuser's brother] got a wine glass and [the accuser] just took the bottle."

Story continues

advertisement

Witness Shane Meridith testified Monday that during the same time period, he caught the boys playing in front of a half-full bottle of wine in Jackson's secret wine cellar.

Although Simone was forthcoming, if timid, on the stand, her testimony was disjointed. She told jurors that the boys did not see her as they left through the back door, but later said they told her "to be quiet and not say anything."

In addition to molestation, Jackson is accused of conspiring to falsely imprison the boy, his sister, his brother and his mother at Neverland in February and March 2003. Prosecutors say that before the family escaped Neverland Jackson and his unindicted co-conspirators bought them one-way tickets to Brazil to hide them from the press and to protect Jackson from allegations that he molested the child.

Jackson says he is innocent of the charges, and his defense has continually attempted to distance him from his alleged co-conspirators, saying he was unaware of their machinations against the accuser's family.

Simone said she spent two days at Neverland with the accuser's 16-year-old sister during the time the family was allegedly held captive. She said they walked through the bird sanctuary, rode trains and talked about "what kinds of things are going on in our lives."

In one of those conversations, Simone said, the sister expressed that she did not want to go to Brazil but that her mother was looking forward to it.

Simone's testimony will continue Wednesday. She is the sister of Rio Jackson, a young boy who is expected to testify for the defense that he saw the accuser and his brother masturbating to porn magazines. The accuser has testified that it was Jackson who showed him porn magazines before masturbating the boy himself.

Denials of abuse

Jurors also heard testimony Tuesday from a social worker who investigated claims of maternal neglect related to Jackson's alleged sexual molestation of the boy.

Irene Peters, a social worker at the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services told jurors that the boy denied sleeping in bed with the pop star.

"I did ask him had he ever been touched sexually inappropriately at any time," Peters testified.

"He said — and he became a little upset — he said, 'Everybody thinks that Michael Jackson sexually abused me. He's never touched me.' And he was just very upset about it."

"Did he ever complain about anything Michael Jackson had ever done?" defense attorney Thomas Mesereau asked the witness.

"No, he did not," Peters replied.

"Did he continually praise Michael Jackson to you?"

"Yes, he did."

But Peters, a 30-year veteran in social services, conceded during cross-examination that few teenage boys have admitted to her during initial interviews that they've been molested by an adult male.

Further, the prosecution contends that the molestation occurred at some point after the Feb. 20, 2003, social services interviews with the family. But that point was not explored during cross-examination.

Peters said she worked for an investigation unit that handled high-profile cases, a unit formed in direct response to the press leaks that occurred in 1993, when Jackson was being investigated for allegedly molesting another young boy.

Peters said the focus of her interviews was to investigate allegations of "general neglect" by the boy's mother, stemming from a complaint received on the department's child abuse hotline. The complaint, received Feb. 14, 2003, was lodged in response to intimate scenes between Jackson and the boy, depicted in journalist Martin Bashir's documentary, "Living with Michael Jackson."

In the TV documentary, Jackson is seen holding the boy's hand and talking about the innocent loving act of sharing his bed with children.

Peters testified that attorney Gloria Allred's name was on the hotline complaint, but did not specify if Allred specifically initiated the call. Allred has publicly stated on several occasions that the state should remove Jackson's own three children from his custody in light of his behavior and statements in the Bashir documentary.

Peters characterized the mother as "touchy-feely, loquacious, overly affectionate and witty" during the interview. The mother continually praised Jackson as a "father figure" to her kids and disparaged Bashir for filming her children without her consent, Peters said.

In a written Feb. 27 report, the social worker concluded that allegations of neglect by the mother were unfounded and that the children denied any sexual abuse at Jackson's hands. She did not visit Neverland, she said, as his Santa Ynez Valley ranch was out of her jurisdiction and investigating Jackson was not in the scope of her assignment.

By chance, the social worker ran into the mother again at a Fat Burger fast food chain on April 1, a few weeks after the family allegedly escaped Neverland for good.

The children were being tutored in the same retail complex, and the mother engaged the social worker in conversation about the Brazil trip that never transpired.

Peters said the mother called Brazil "a dump," a place where she wouldn't have known anyone. The mother, Peters said, claimed it was Jackson, and not his aides as the defense contends, who wanted to send the family to Brazil.

However, Peters said that at no point during any meetings or phone calls did the mother, the accuser or his siblings ever complain that they were being held captive by Jackson and his aides.