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Jackson 'kept away from family'
20/05/2005 15:02 - (SA)
Santa Maria - The mother of Michael Jackson's accuser complained that she and her children were being kept away from the pop star during the time prosecutors said one of her sons was being molested, a witness testified on Thursday.
The testimony came after the judge refused to allow the defence to call CNN's Larry King as a witness. The talk show host was in court, but left without taking the stand.
The defence wanted to present testimony by King that attorney Larry Feldman, who once represented the accuser's mother, had told him the mother was "wacko" and out for money.
The highlight from Thursday's testimony was that of Azja Pryor, a Hollywood casting assistant and the girlfriend of movie star, Chris Tucker.
She told the jury that the accuser's mother complained to her in early March 2003 that two German associates of Jackson had stepped in to keep her family away.
Jackson 'molests the then-13-year-old'
She said: "I asked, 'Does Michael know anything about this?"
Pryor testified: "They won't let us around him because they know the children tug at his heart strings."
The period she cited was critical because prosecutors alleged Jackson molested the then-13-year-old accuser between February 20 and March 12 2003.
When the accuser's mother testified, she bitterly spoke out against "the Germans" and claimed they were conspiring with Jackson to hold her family captive.
Pryor began her testimony with a few tears, talking about how she met the family at the Laugh Factory club in Hollywood in 2001 when the boy was battling cancer.
The owner of the club and comedians there had become involved in fundraising efforts for the family.
Pryor said she and Tucker, who was expected to testify next week, began taking the children places.
She said Tucker took them by private jet to an Oakland Raiders game and invited them to his brother's wedding.
Mom 'never complains about Jackson'
Pryor testified that she and the boy's mother would talk for hours at a time on the phone, but the mother never complained to her about Jackson.
The judge later handed the defence a victory when he allowed jurors to see a video tour of the singer's Neverland ranch.
Besides the ranch's amusement park rides and zoo animals, the video showed numerous clocks, countering testimony by members of the accuser's family that they were not able to keep track of time while Jackson allegedly held them against their will.
Attorney Tom Sneddon vehemently opposed the video, saying much of it was "propaganda."
He cited in particular, a scene that showed a note written on a chalkboard by one of Jackson's children, saying, "I love you daddy."
In addition to molestation, Jackson, 46, was accused of giving the boy wine and conspiring to hold his family captive to get them to rebut a TV documentary in which Jackson said he let children sleep in his bed, but that it was non-sexual.
- AP
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