Jackson accuser 'had wine'
2005-05-16 23:59
Linda Deutsch
Santa Maria - A security guard at Michael Jackson's Neverland ranch testified on Monday that he caught the pop star's teenage accuser and his brother with a bottle of wine, and a maid told the jury she saw adult magazines in the brother's backpack.
Defence attorneys in Jackson's child-molestation trial called the Neverland employees to challenge prosecution claims that it was Jackson who exposed the children to alcohol and adult materials - suggesting instead the boys had found the items on their own.
The defence also attacked the family's claims of being held against their will, calling witnesses who said there was no hint of captivity when the mother went to a spa for a body waxing or when her children went to an orthodontist to have their braces removed.
Jackson, 46, is accused of molesting a 13-year-old boy in February or March 2003 and giving him wine.
He is also accused of conspiring to hold the boy's family captive to get them to rebut a TV documentary in which the boy appeared with Jackson, who said he let children sleep in his bed, but it was non-sexual.
Prosecutors have said Jackson showed the boys sexually explicit material on the internet and in adult magazines, suggesting it was a precursor to molestation.
Security guard Shane Meredith testified on Monday he found the boys in the wine cellar, which has an entrance behind a juke box in Neverland's arcade, after noticing the juke box door was open.
Meredith said he went down the stairs and surprised the boys.
"I saw the two children laughing, giggling," Meredith said. "I could see them with a bottle of alcohol. I told them they needed to get out of that area right now. They were pretty shaken."
Meredith noted that the bottle was half-empty.
Neverland maid Maria Gomez also testified she once saw adult magazines in a backpack she believed belonged to the accuser's brother.
Testifying through a Spanish-language interpreter, Gomez also said the boys' mother praised Jackson as "a blessing to them", but about a week later "started talking about being there against her will... that we should help her leave."
Gomez testified that the mother indicated she was being held by three people including Dieter Wiesner, who is among Jackson associates named as unindicted alleged co-conspirators.
The defence has sought to suggest that the associates were actually conspiring against Jackson to profit off his troubles, rather than conspiring with Jackson.
Neverland worker Kathryn Bernard also told of taking the mother to town to go shopping.
"She was just praising Michael and telling me how bad she had it with her ex. I kept thinking, 'I don't know this lady and why is she telling me this?' " Bernard testified.
- AP