Jackson prosecution winds up 10-week case

SANTA MARIA - Everything about Michael Jackson exudes an almost unfathomable weirdness, and his trial on child molestation, kidnapping and conspiracy charges has been no exception.

For more than 10 weeks, notwithstanding momentous events elsewhere in the world, the eyes of a dedicated band of media hawks, fans, crime junkies and general news consumers have been fixed on the squat, unlovely, whitewashed courthouse in the Californian town of Santa Maria.

The town has played host to the hardy, if not always large, cohort of fans with their "I love you MJ" banners and balloons; to the white-maned Tom Mesereau, Jackson's razor-brained defence lawyer; to the Nation of Islam security guards and Jackson family members; to spiritual guides and Jackson's personal magician.

And, of course, there has been the febrile, almost spectral presence of Jackson himself, in flamboyant suits and armbands, giving his trademark V salute to the fans - when, that is, he isn't begging off sick, running late or arriving in his pyjamas.

It has been a spectacle and a media circus, attracting a queasily obsessive degree of public attention.

But it has also provided a window on the spectacularly dysfunctional environment at Jackson's Neverland ranch and the cast of colourful characters who have passed through it.

Whoever you believe on the substance of the criminal charges, there is no doubting Jackson's singular knack for drawing in low-lifes, charlatans, liars and money-grubbers.

We have heard stories of Jackson's prepubescent guests running wild, drinking alcohol and leafing through pornography.

We have met characters like Marc Schaffel, a former gay porn producer whom Jackson hired to conduct damage-control operations following the airing of Martin Bashir's devastating documentary, Living with Michael Jackson, two years ago.

We have heard from maids, major-domos, security guards and others, some of whom now profess to have been shocked to see Jackson allegedly jumping naked into a shower with young boys or sticking his hands into their trousers, but did not think to do anything about it at the time.

What is the jury to make of such people? Either they are lying, as Jackson's expensive team of lawyers contends, or else they decided their job security, or the possibility of selling their inside information to the gutter press, was more important than the safety and well-being of the children.

Either way, there are ample grounds for regarding them as repellent human beings.

One thing is sure: never again will a newspaper or glossy magazine be able to describe Neverland as a childhood-fantasy paradise, with its zoo, its funfair rides and its extensive video arcade.

If Jackson is convicted, the world will remember this lavishly elaborate property as a giant honey-trap luring young boys to the end of their sexual innocence.

Even if he is acquitted, and the world agrees with his view that his interest in boys has been maliciously misunderstood, it will still be impossible to think about Neverland without dredging up images of 10-year-olds drinking wine in the cellar or leaving their fingerprints on the centrefold spreads of sex magazines.

Santa Barbara County district attorney Tom Sneddon has come in for plentiful criticism for his disorganised presentation, overblown announcements of what his witnesses would tell the court and the suspicion that his determination to nail Jackson at all costs may have partly clouded his judgment.

It is important to realise, though, just how daunting Sneddon's task is. The very dysfunctions that no doubt raised his suspicions about Jackson in the first place are also the principal reason why this case is proving so hard to try.

Almost nobody who has taken the witness stand on behalf of the prosecution has come across as entirely reliable - not Jackson's 15-year-old accuser, not his family, not the lawyers and child abuse specialists they consulted after they first came forward with their allegations, and certainly not the Neverland entourage.

Part of the challenge Sneddon and his team face is in the nature of child abuse cases. More or less by definition, these involve damaged people - often, as in this case, from broken families.

If the abuse really occurred, then they have plentiful reason to feel shamed or embarrassed or scared and make all sorts of contradictory public statements.

And if the abuse did not occur, their willingness to lie on such an explosive topic raises all sorts of other troubling psychological questions.

The Michael Jackson factor, though, adds a whole extra layer of complication - because of his wealth, his celebrity and his deliberate, almost studied pursuit of public weirdness. How many accused child abusers have personal French chefs to serve a plate of chips to them and their young guests in the dead of night?

Jackson's money can, of course, be interpreted in one of two ways - either as another means to corrupt the families of his alleged victims, or as a liability, making him a target for unscrupulous people determined to take advantage of him.

One of the more bizarre exchanges of the trial took place between the accuser and Mesereau after the boy suggested Jackson had not done all that much to help him recover from a rare form of cancer.

Mesereau immediately sought to portray him as ungrateful and dishonest. Hadn't Jackson allowed his family to stay at Neverland for weeks at a time? Hadn't he sponsored a blood drive for the boy? Hadn't he given them lavish gifts, including a a four-wheel-drive car? Didn't he chauffeur them around in a Rolls-Royce?

The boy replied that when he and his family drove back to Los Angeles in the Rolls-Royce they were really escaping from what they regarded as enforced captivity on the ranch.

"Oh, when you escaped from Neverland, you went back a few days later, didn't you?" Mesereau retorted, barely concealing his sarcasm. "And then you escaped from Neverland a second time. There were three escapes in all, right?"

The boy's mother was an even more problematic witness. In a week of testimony, she rambled, contradicted herself, refused to be drawn on whether she had defrauded the state welfare system, and at times sounded downright paranoid as she talked about her fears that Jackson would abduct her family in a hot-air balloon or have her parents assassinated.

"Don't judge me," she begged the jurors as she insisted she had lied and acted her way through the so-called "rebuttal video" - the paean of praise to Jackson put out in the wake of the Bashir documentary.

It seems unlikely the jury was doing anything but judging her. The prosecution took no pleasure in the fact that someone this unreliable was one of its chief witness.

But the prosecution was also responsible for some very specific, identifiable mistakes and omissions. The centrepiece of their case was the testimony of the accuser and his younger brother, describing the alleged acts of molestation themselves.

But neither the boys nor anybody else could put a precise date on these events or provide any other corroborating details.

The psychologist brought in to assess the credibility of their accusations turned out to be linked to one of the most disastrous child sex abuse prosecutions conducted in the United States and the prosecution ended up asking him almost no questions.

The biggest mistake of all came last week with the appearance of Jackson's ex-wife, Debbie Rowe, on the stand. Sneddon and his colleagues promised she would corroborate the charge that the rebuttal video was scripted and that Neverland was effectively run as a mini-republic of fear and coercion.

But Rowe said the precise opposite - that she had spoken her mind freely, that Jackson was a wonderful man and a great father, and that the real fault for any problems lay with the "vultures" around him.

The prosecution made a major blunder by failing to pin her down in advance.

Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson made a point that might well resonate with the jurors.

"If half of what the prosecution witnesses say about Michael Jackson is true, he deserves to go to jail," he wrote. "But so do some of those witnesses. Once the whole lot is behind bars, the rest of us ought to work on taming the monster of celebrity before it devours us all."

- INDEPENDENT