Jacko's Defense: Accuser's DNA Not Found
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Wrapping up his opening statement Tuesday, Michael Jackson's (search) defense attorney said authorities did not find the accuser's DNA when they searched the pop star's bedroom.
The lack of such evidence shows child molestation claims against the singer are false, said Thomas Mesereau Jr. (search), countering the case laid out Monday by the prosecution.
In fact, said Mesereau, the prosecution had to change the dates of the alleged crimes because the accuser's story changed.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Mr. Jackson flat-out denies these molestation allegations," Jackson's defense attorney told the jury. "They are false."
Mesereau also hinted that the pop icon might testify on his own behalf during his trial.
Twice during opening statements, the defense attorney used the phrase "Michael (or Mr.) Jackson will tell you" when foreshadowing evidence his team would present to refute some of the allegations made by the young accuser and his mother.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The prosecution then called its first witness in the case: British journalist Martin Bashir (search), producer of the documentary "Living With Michael Jackson."
The piece drew widespread news coverage and an investigation by Los Angeles County officials because of Jackson's on-air admission that he has shared his bed with children. The singer held hands with his accuser in the documentary, which District Attorney Tom Sneddon (search) began showing to the jury on Tuesday.
Ann Kite, a crisis public-relations manager who once worked for Jackson, also took the stand. Court was adjourned in the afternoon.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Jackson, 46, is charged with molesting a cancer patient at Neverland in 2003 when the boy was 13, giving him alcohol and conspiring to hold him and his family captive.
Jurors watched the documentary after prosecutors called its maker, British journalist Martin Bashir, to the stand. The documentary, taped in 2002 and aired in 2003, led to the investigation that ultimately resulted in the charges against Jackson.
During the viewing, Jackson dabbed his eyes with a tissue during a segment in which he says children are his reason for living.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}As the jurors watched on a large screen in the hushed courtroom, some leaned forward in their seats, a few smiled or laughed when Jackson said humorous things, and a few bobbed their heads along with Jackson's music. Some smiled when the video showed Jackson singing "smile while your heart is breaking" as he left a hotel.
Although the documentary is best known for Jackson's comments about allowing children to sleep in his bed, it also exposed jurors to a sympathetic portrayal of Jackson. The singer is seen racing go-carts and climbing trees, as well as teaching Bashir how to "moonwalk."
At one point Jackson emotionally describes abuse that he claims he and his brothers received from their father, Joe Jackson, during their days in the Jackson 5.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"I remember hearing my mother scream, 'Joe, you're going to kill him,"' Jackson says at one point.
The documentary also referred to Jackson's relationships with adult women, and briefly showed the 2002 incident in which he dangled one of his children from a hotel balcony in Germany.
At one point, Jackson appears with the accuser and his brother and sister. The children do a dance routine in Jackson's kitchen.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Later the boy holds hands with Jackson and says the pop star is perpetually childlike and understands children.
"He's really a child at heart," the boy tells an interviewer. "You're an adult when you want to be one."
When the boy says that Jackson once told him and his brother, "If you love me you'll sleep in the bed," Jackson tells the interviewer that the children slept in his bed and he slept on the floor in a sleeping bag.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Holding the boy's hand tightly, Jackson says, "My greatest inspiration comes from kids. It's all inspired by that level of purity. I see God in the face of children."
After the viewing, Mesereau sought to have Bashir's testimony and the documentary stricken when Bashir refused to say how many hours of videotape were recorded during the making of the program.
Judge Rodney S. Melville (search) refused to strike the video or the testimony.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}As Bashir was being peppered with questions by Mesereau, the witness' attorney repeatedly invoked California's shield law for reporters and the First Amendment, saying that as a journalist Bashir did not have to answer questions about unpublished materials. Bashir refused to answer about 30 times.
Jackson appeared agitated when Bashir was on the stand, at one point putting out his arms as if to tell him to speak up. Bashir was testifying in a near-whisper.
As Jackson left court, reporters asked him how he was feeling. He said "good," then added "angry." He thanked reporters and walked away.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}In his opening statement, Mesereau earlier accused the prosecution of changing the dates of the alleged molestation because they were in conflict with an interview between child welfare workers and the family.
Mesereau also said the mother was using the criminal charges to build a civil case in order to get a payoff, and he addressed allegations that Jackson showed sexually explicit images and gave alcohol to his accuser and his brother.
The trial got off to a graphic start Monday and Tuesday with harsh opening statements from Sneddon and equally strong counterattacks by Mesereau. The prosecution told jurors that the pop star plied his victim with vodka and porn, while the defense portrayed the accuser's mother as a grifter hoping to profit from a smear.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}During the continuation of opening statements Tuesday, at which Jackson was present, Mesereau said the accuser and his brother were "wild" children who stole liquor from the cabinet and found pornographic magazines on their own.
"Mr. Jackson will tell you that he found these kids with the magazines and then he had to lock them [the magazines] up," Mesereau told the jury, leaving some trial observers to wonder whether he was implying that Jackson might testify on his own behalf. Mesereau never expressly told the jurors that Jackson will take the stand. Jackson is not on the defense witness list.
FOX News legal analyst Jim Hammer said it was highly unusual for the defense to say something like that, because defense attorneys don't usually tip their hand in opening statements.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Jackson's attorney reminded jurors that in detailing specific acts of alleged molestation in opening statements, the prosecutor had given them this "lurid discussion of masturbation."
Among the allegations Sneddon made were that Jackson told the boy masturbation was normal, then reached into the boy's underpants and masturbated the boy and himself.
But Mesereau said no DNA from the accuser was found in Jackson's bedroom.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Mesereau accused the prosecution of changing the dates of the alleged molestation because they were in conflict with an interview between child welfare workers and the family.
He said the boy once told investigators the molestation occurred prior to the Feb. 21 interview, but at another point claimed the molestation occurred after the interview.
Mesereau also said the mother was using the criminal charges to build a civil case in order to get a payoff, and he addressed allegations that Jackson showed sexually explicit images and gave alcohol to his accuser and his brother.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Mesereau said the children were sometimes "out of control" at Neverland and read Jackson's magazines and broke into his alcohol cabinet without his permission.
"Mr. Jackson will freely admit that he does read girlie magazines from time to time," Mesereau said. "He absolutely does not show them to children."
Sneddon said Jackson gave his accuser alcohol to make him more susceptible to molestation, and explicit magazines were found with the accuser's fingerprints and that one magazine had the fingerprints of Jackson and the accuser.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Mesereau offered a possible explanation for that, saying Jackson once caught the boy reading his magazines and took them away and locked them in a briefcase.
The boys also memorized security codes and codes used to start amusement park rides at Neverland, so they had the run of the ranch when Jackson was away and could get into Jackson's bedroom without permission, Mesereau said.
At one point a ride operator found the boys at the top of a Ferris Wheel they had started, and they were throwing things at elephants in Jackson's zoo and at people, Mesereau said.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Of the alcohol allegations, Mesereau said the boys "were caught intoxicated, they were caught with bottles. Mr. Jackson was nowhere around."
Sneddon said Monday the boy, now 15, will describe to the jury his sexual experiences with Jackson and show that the musician's Neverland Ranch (search) was a devilish lair.
"The private world of Michael Jackson will show that instead of reading them Peter Pan, he's showing them sexually explicit magazines. ... Instead of cookies and milk, you can substitute wine, vodka and bourbon," he said.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}FOX News' Anita Vogel, Catherine Donaldson-Evans and The Associated Press contributed to this report.