More fireworks at Jackson trial
2005-04-18 21:31
Santa Maria - The mother of the teenager who accused Michael Jackson of sex abuse clashed on Monday with the star's lawyer for a second day as he sought to expose her as a greed-driven liar.
The witness traded barbs with Jackson's lead attorney, Thomas Mesereau, during his fiery cross-examination of the woman whose testimony is central to the case against Jackson.
Her account of the events surrounding the claims of child abuse and an alleged plot to kidnap the boy and his family could make or break the case against the pop icon.
But, in a prickly exchange with Mesereau, she refused to answer key questions, said she had only hazy recollections of events or said she did not understand the questions.
"I don't understand your question," or "I don't understand what you're saying," she told Mesereau repeatedly, turning to jurors to describe apparently unrelated events in a frequently jumbled and unintelligible way.
'Difficult witness'
In a dramatic and frequently bizarre exchange on Friday, she butted heads with Mesereau, objecting to his tone, accusing him of trying to humiliate her and even comparing herself to Oscar-winning actress Halle Berry.
On Monday, she refused to say whether she was represented by a lawyer at the time that she claims she and her children were being held prisoner by Jackson and his aides in February or March 2003, citing attorney-client privilege.
"She's a very difficult witness," said legal analyst Jim Moret, who is following the case, adding that even the prosecution had asked that parts of her testimony be stricken from the official court record.
The woman claimed she was forced by Jackson aides to rehearse lines 10 times a day for a 25-minute video in which she and her children heaped praise on Jackson and described him as a father figure.
Prosecutors claim that Jackson and five employees held the family prisoner until they agreed to make the so-called rebuttal video to dispel speculation about the star's relationship with his future accuser, a cancer patient, then aged 13.
"She may be sticking to her story to her detriment," Moret said.
"To say now that she had been coached 10 times a day over a period of days... may come back to haunt her."
Mesereau is trying to portray the woman as a financial predator with a history of lying under oath and coaching her children to lie in order to win cash settlements in lawsuits she has filed in the past.
Credibility damaged
He claimed in opening arguments that the woman used money collected at fund-raisers for her sick son and donated by celebrities to pay for cosmetic surgery and on other luxuries for herself.
Court watchers say Mesereau has badly damaged the 37-year-old witness's credibility in the eyes of jurors.
Jackson, 46, has denied 10 charges, including that he molested the woman's son, plied him with alcohol and conspired to hold the family prisoner.
Jackson faces up to 20 years if he is convicted on all counts.