SANTA MONICA, Calif. — A jury cleared Tommy Lee of any responsibility for the drowning of a preschooler in his swimming pool Thursday and awarded no money to the boy's parents, who had requested $10 million.

"It was very, very obvious Tommy Lee was not responsible for the death of that child," jury foreman Howard Pollack said of 4-year-old Daniel Karven-Veres, who died at the rocker's Malibu estate during a 2001 swim party.

The former Motley Crue drummer showed no reaction as a court clerk read the panel's decision. Immediately after the verdict, court officers whisked the 40-year-old goateed musician out a rear entrance to the courthouse and into a waiting silver BMW sport-utility vehicle.

In a statement released later through his publicist, Lee said, "Although I am relieved that the court has found me not negligent, there are no winners in this sad situation."

Ursula Karven-Veres, Daniel's mother, is well-known in Germany as a TV actress.

Although they sat in the front row of the courtroom every day of the four-day trial, Daniel's parents, German actress Ursula Karven-Veres and television producer James Veres, did not come to court for the verdict. One of the Vereses' lawyers, David Lira, said the couple was too "wiped out."

In a statement to the German news service DPA, Karven-Veres said, "My husband and I are very relieved that this terrible trial is over. The trial was important to clarify what happened on the day of the tragedy." The 39-year-old actress, who appears frequently in television movies in her homeland, said that despite the verdict she felt the family's suit shed an important spotlight on the dangers of swimming pools to young children.

Daniel was found floating in the shallow end of the kidney-shaped pool during a June 16, 2001, birthday party for 5-year-old Brandon Lee, the elder son of Lee and his ex-wife Pamela Anderson. In their suit, Daniel's parents claimed that Lee should have hired a lifeguard for the 15 children in attendance, some of whom, like Daniel, could not swim.

But jurors said hiring a lifeguard for a backyard swim party seemed outlandish and was beyond what the law required for homeowners.

"Does anybody do that? Just because it was Tommy Lee, should he have done that? No," said Pollack, a 62-year-old health food store owner who said he has a pool in his backyard and a 4-year-old grandson. "Nobody as a homeowner could have taken any more precautions than Tommy Lee did."

The Vereses' lawyer, Lira, said that, with both sides agreeing on most of the facts, the case pivoted on jurors' understanding of what Lee was required to do under the law. "I thought the whole case came down to the extent of his legal duty in inviting young kids to the pool party," he said.

Several jurors, who did not give their names, said they believed Lee's claim that he expected every parent or nanny at the party to mind their own children and that the real blame for Daniel's death lay with his parents and two nannies.

Daniel Karven-Veres

Daniel went to the party with his nanny, a 24-year-old German student named Christian Weihs, but Weihs wanted to leave the party early for a rock concert and left the boy in the care of another babysitter, Judith Zeihm. Weihs informed Daniel's parents of the trade-off and they did not object, but later that afternoon, Zeihm left Daniel in the shallow end of the pool to escort other children to the bathroom. The small boy slipped silently under water and drowned despite the presence of 10 adults, including Lee nearby.

One female juror, a dietician from Brentwood, said she felt Zeihm, who testified at the trial, was the real culprit.

"She was supposed to be watching him," she said.

In an inteview Thursday with the television program "Inside Edition," Zeihm denied responsibility and said she was being made "a scapegoat."

Another juror said the jury found blame with "the chain from parent to guardian to guardian."

"No one knew Judith, but they left him with her. It's the parent's responsibility and that's where we found the negligence," said the juror, a retired marketing executive.

The panel of nine women and three men deliberated just over two hours before reaching a verdict and some jurors said there was minimal disagreement in their ranks.

"We could have done it in an hour, but we kept talking because there were three jurors who were questioning some things and we wanted to give everyone a platform," the retired marketing executive said.

The pool at Tommy Lee's Malibu estate

She noted that only nine jurors had to agree to reach a verdict in the civil matter, but said the panel wanted everyone to have a chance to weigh in. Ultimately, all voted together.

On his way out of the courthouse, Pollack, the foreman, said he was happy to be alive for the end of the trial. During the weekend recess in the case, he suffered a minor heart attack and was briefly hospitalized.

Stress from the case, he insisted, had nothing to do with the heart attack.

"No, this was obvious," he said of the jury's decision.