SANTA MARIA, Calif. — The fate of Michael Jackson is now in the hands of a jury.

"Ladies and gentleman, this has been a nightmare for Michael Jackson," defense attorney Thomas Mesereau told jurors shortly before they received the case Friday. "Under the law and the facts, you must return a verdict of not guilty on all counts — it's the only right verdict."

Deputy District Attorney Ronald Zonen, who had the last word in rebuttal closing arguments, played to the jurors' sense of reason when he asked them to dismiss Jackson's claims that a 46-year-old man can innocently share his bed with little boys.

"How do you explain ... child after child after child, going back in his bed," Zonen said. "Not just in his bedroom, but in his bed."

Story continues

advertisement

A little before 12:30 p.m. Friday, the panel of eight women and four men filed into the deliberation room, where they will sift through nearly 700 pieces of evidence, and rely on their recollections and notes from the testimony of 140 witnesses as they determine whether Michael Jackson is guilty of molesting a 13-year-old boy.

The panel deliberated for about two hours Friday before breaking for the day. They are not sequestered and will resume deliberations Monday.

Pleading with the panel to save his client's "freedom and reputation," Mesereau argued that Jackson is only human, that he has personal problems, such as the alcoholism, interest in pornography and arrested development alluded to during his 66-day trial. But his greatest fault, the attorney said, is being so naive that he allowed "con artists, actors and liars" into his life.

"If you convict him of anything, they are going to make millions," Mesereau said of the family who accuses Jackson of molesting the teenage cancer survivor.

"They're just waiting," Mesereau continued. "Waiting for the biggest con of their careers — right here — they just need you to help them, that's all."

In nearly four hours over two days, the defense attorney blasted away at the prosecution's timeline, pointed out small inconsistencies in page after page of transcribed statements from the accuser and his family, and revisited a history of legal actions and fraudulent welfare claims made by the accuser's mother — all in the hopes of convincing jurors that the case against Jackson was built on greed and fraud.

"It only takes one lie under oath to throw this case out of court — you can't count all the lies in court told by this family," Mesereau said. "How many does it take to show you this case is a fraud?"

The biggest red flag, Mesereau said, was that the family went to see two lawyers and a psychiatrist before ever going to police with allegations of abuse.

One of those lawyers, civil attorney Larry Feldman, who won more than $20 million from Jackson in a 1993 settlement for another 13-year-old boy, Jordie Chandler, who also accused Jackson of molesting him. Chandler did not testify during the current trial.

"What they're trying to do to Michael Jackson is so harmful, so brutal, so potentially devastating to him," Mesereau said, referring not only to Jackson's current accusers and their attorneys, but also to the Santa Barbara County prosecutors who the defense believes still holds a vendetta against the singer. The same prosecutors had to abandon their 1993 investigation when Chandler took the millions in exchange for silence.

Jackson faces a 10-count indictment, including four of committing a lewd act on the boy and one of attempting to commit a lewd act in February and March 2003. He is also charged with four counts of administering an intoxicating agent, namely wine and liquor, in an attempt to commit the lewd acts.

The final count — conspiracy to abduct, extort and falsely imprison the boy and his family — stems from the actions of Jackson and his five alleged, yet unindicted, co-conspirators after a damaging TV documentary became a public relations nightmare for the singer.

Prosecutors say that when the accuser was seen holding hands and embracing Jackson in "Living with Michael Jackson," they went into damage control mode, isolating the boy, his siblings and their mother for weeks and making plans to send them to Brazil.

Problematic timeline

But the timeline of the alleged sexual abuse has been problematic for the prosecution, as the defense pointed out during closings.

Jackson first met the child in summer of 2000, but the boy testified during the prosecution's case that Jackson first fondled and masturbated him as they lay in his bed at Neverland in February or March 2003 — many weeks after the documentary aired.

To convict Jackson, jurors must believe that, while a firestorm was brewing about whether Jackson molested the boy — and while Jackson was being investigated by social workers and the press — only then did he begin to molest the child.

Jackson's admission in the documentary that he shares his bed with boys, Mesereau contended, is nothing more than what the "childlike" entertainer calls it: an innocent, loving and nonsexual act.

"Allowing children into your bed and room is not a crime," Mesereau told jurors.

But Deputy District Attorney Ronald Zonen argued that the answer lies in Jackson's own arrogance and impulse control, that he committed the molestation even while under the microscope, "because he could."

Mesereau, who called the charge "absurd," implored jurors to acquit the singer, because there were no independent witnesses, no forensic evidence, and the accusers themselves could not be believed.

Bruises, a payout

In a case that hinges on believing one side's version of events, Mesereau had plenty of opportunities to point out the seemingly inconsistent statements made by the accuser, his siblings and especially their mother.

The loquacious and emotionally erratic woman gave testimony that was at times so bizarre that even Jackson smiled. She claimed she was forced to go shopping and to beauty salons as part of a positive PR video for Jackson. At one point she said she feared Jackson was going to make her family disappear by launching them from Neverland in a hot air balloon.

Mesereau revisited testimony from a welfare worker about the mother's emergency welfare applications about a week after depositing a check for $32,000 from a civil suit.

The family received $152,000 from JCPenney in 2001 after claiming they were beat up by security guards. Mesereau again showed the woman's booking photo, depicting her unblemished face, to remind jurors that the photos of black-and-blue body bruises she later used to help secure the money did not appear to corroborate her appearance immediately after the alleged beating.

While prosecutors argued that the JCPenney civil suit was above-board, they admitted during closing arguments Thursday that the mother's failure to report the legal windfall in her welfare claims was fraudulent. But they asked jurors to sympathize with a divorced woman in her early 30s who was trying to support three children.

Mesereau suggested, instead, that the mother had a knack for conniving celebrities out of cash, using her son's illness to sway favor. He pointed to the $20,000 given to the family by comedian Louise Palanker, a $2,000 check Jackson's videographer gave her after she told him "tales of woe" and the $1,500 actor Chris Tucker gave the family for the boy's medical bills, although the treatment was covered by insurance.

Chimp parties

He asked jurors to doubt the words of the accuser when he told investigators for the first time in a July 2003 taped police interview that Jackson molested him about five times at Neverland and gave him wine and liquor almost every night.

Study the child's demeanor, Mesereau said, as he "lies about wanting to leave Neverland because he was scared." The boy testified in court that he did not want to leave because he was enjoying himself.

Jurors were also shown about 25 minutes from "Living with Michael Jackson," in which Jackson describes himself as someone who likes to give celebrity animal parties for his chimp, Bubbles, and prefers to sit in trees and write music than live in the world of adults.

"His generosity knows no bounds because the man has a wonderful, kind heart," Mesereau said, scoffing at claims that his soft-spoken client was the kind of man who could plot conspiracies of abduction and false imprisonment.

He reminded jurors that the accuser and his younger brother, who was not molested but says he witnessed at least two acts against his brother, have until the age of 18 "before the clock starts ticking on a civil suit." The mother may still sue Jackson as well.

"You have the power in your hands to make them rich and they'll never have to work a day in their lives," Mesereau warned. "You have that power."