SANTA MARIA, Calif. — Attorneys in Michael Jackson's child molestation trial rested Friday after jurors watched what may have been the most compelling evidence against the singer in his 62-day-long trial — a tape of his teenage accuser's very first police interview, in which he reluctantly describes sexual abuse he allegedly suffered at Jackson's hands.

With a heavy sigh and a voice barely above a murmur, the eighth-grader revealed to detectives for the first time the moment his former idol allegedly crossed the line from father figure to sexual predator in spring 2003 at Neverland Ranch.

"He started to tell me how boys have to masturbate, because if we don't we go crazy," the boy said on the July 6, 2003, taped interview. Jurors appeared riveted, but did not appear to be taking many notes.

"He said that he wanted to show me how to masturbate and I said no, and he said he'd do it for me," the boy continued, his eyes cast down as detectives coaxed him to continue, to "get it off your chest."

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The teen put his hand to his forehead, and touched his face. He sniffled, but did not appear to be weeping.

"He put his hand in my pants and he started masturbating me," the teen continued, adding that Jackson put his hand down his pajama bottoms and told him, "I want to teach you," and "There's nothing wrong with it, it's natural."

"I told him I didn't want to do it, but he kept on doing it," he told detectives.

The boy said that he and Jackson were lying together in Jackson's bed, where they had shared many innocent nights together watching movies, playing video games and talking until one night in February 2003 when Jackson's motives allegedly turned prurient.

After that first incident, the teen said, Jackson continued to masturbate him five times or less, "every night my brother wasn't there," he said.

The boy's younger brother, the accuser explained, had stopped sleeping with them in Jackson's bedroom because he was unwelcome.

Prosecutors say Jackson groomed the child for the lewd acts by giving him alcohol and showing him pornography.

The boy told detectives in the interview that on the first night he stayed at Neverland with the singer, they looked at "naked ladies" with Jackson's aide, Frank Tyson, on a laptop. He also described a black suitcase filled with magazines such as Hustler and Playboy, but no child pornography. Prosecutors found numerous pornographic magazines at Neverland during a Nov. 18, 2003, search.

The boy, a cancer survivor with one kidney, said that Jackson gave him wine, vodka or Bacardi every day he stayed at the mansion.

Over the course of an hour, the child's demeanor appeared to subtly shift from fidgety to withdrawn to slightly relieved and forthcoming.

Dressed in long denim shorts, a button-down shirt and tennis shoes, he sat on a couch in a small interview room containing flowers, magazines and tissues.

His interviewers, Sgt. Steve Robel and Det. Paul Zellis, began by asking him about school and sports and if he knew the difference between right and wrong.

The teen's answers appeared to come naturally, and they were consistent with his testimony in court two months ago.

Jackson sat motionless and still in the dimly lit courtroom as the tape was projected onto a screen. It was the final piece of evidence presented to jurors, marking a dramatic end to the prosecution's rebuttal case against the King of Pop.

The defense threatened this week to recall the accuser and his mother to the stand for surrebuttal, but ultimately rested their case without putting on a surrebuttal or calling the defendant to testify in his own defense.

Jackson is charged with 10 counts, including sexual molestation, giving the child alcohol, and conspiring to falsely imprison the boy and his family at Neverland in February and March 2003. He faces up to 20 years if convicted.

Jackson maintains his innocence and claims that he is the victim of a litigious family whom he naively allowed into his home and showered with gifts because he was touched by the boy's struggle with cancer.

Jurors will have Monday off for the holiday and Tuesday off while attorneys argue jury instructions in court. Closing arguments may begin as early as Wednesday

Jackson appeared somber as he left the courtroom. As he walked past the cameras, he gave a praying gesture with his hands, plucked the umbrella from his assistant's hands and carried it for himself as he headed to the waiting black SUV.