Prosecutors finish presenting case in Jackson trial
Associate: Jackson camp warned accuser’s family
Wednesday, May 4, 2005 Posted: 2138 GMT (0538 HKT)
SANTA MARIA, California (CNN) — Associates of Michael Jackson made up stories about killers following the family of Jackson’s accuser and coached his ex-wife during a rebuttal to a controversial February 2003 documentary, a witness in Jackson’s child molestation trial testified Wednesday.The testimony from Rudy Provencio came as prosecutors finished presenting their case against the pop star. On Wednesday afternoon, the prosecution rested its case.Jackson was deeply in debt and always needed money, which he referred to as “french fries,” music producer Rudy Provencio testified.
The pop star was told a rebuttal to the documentary would “save Michael’s image and career” and could make money, he said.Provencio was a longtime friend of Marc Schaffel, who was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in Jackson’s case. He said members of Jackson’s entourage were concerned that the boy’s family would blackmail the entertainer and felt they needed to be involved with the videotaped rebuttal.During cross-examination, however, Jackson lawyer Thomas Mesereau Jr. questioned the accuracy of Provencio’s notes, which he kept in a journal. He noted that Provencio’s description of his conversation about “killers” was on a page dated February 1, 2003 — well before he testified the conversation took place.Provencio said he may not have put a date on the ‘killers’ entry, but that it was written after the rest of the material on that page.
Provencio said Jackson’s associates began a frantic effort to limit the damage from the documentary after they obtained a transcript of the film from a British journalist before it aired.”The phone went ballistic,” Provencio said. “If an octopus could pick up a phone every 2 seconds, that was how busy it was.”Provencio’s testimony came as prosecutors wrapped up their case against Jackson. A grand jury indicted the 46-year-old pop star last year on charges of molesting a boy, then 13, giving him alcohol and conspiring to hold him and his family captive in 2003.Jackson has pleaded not guilty to the charges. His accuser, now 15, and the boy’s mother, sister and brother have testified during the trial that began February 28.
(Opening statements)Prosecutors argue that Jackson’s associates tried to intimidate and control the family of his accuser in the weeks surrounding the February 2003 broadcast of “Living with Michael Jackson,” by British journalist Martin Bashir. In the film, Jackson held hands with his accuser and defended his practice of letting children share his bed.Provencio said he listened in on numerous conference calls involving Jackson in the days and weeks surrounding the documentary’s U.S. broadcast. He said both Schaffel and another unindicted co-conspirator, Dieter Weizner, raised concerns that the boy’s family would try to blackmail the singer, and that Jackson had said he would take the family to Miami because “Michael wanted to go someplace fun.”The boy’s mother has testified that Jackson had her and her children whisked away to Miami on the day before the ABC broadcast, where they remained on the night the documentary aired.
(Mother’s testimony)The prosecution alleges the trip was an effort by Jackson to keep them from seeing the program.Provencio said Debbie Rowe, a former wife of Jackson, was among the first people Jackson’s entourage tried to line up for the rebuttal video, which aired on the Fox network. During the nine-hour taping, Provencio said Schaffel complained several times about the question-and-answer session and eventually changed a script to provide answers for Rowe.He said Schaffel held out the prospect of Rowe seeing her children, whose custody she gave up to Jackson after their 1999 divorce.”You’re doing good, and you’re going to see them soon,” Provencio quoted Schaffel as saying.Provencio said he met Jackson’s accuser once, after the documentary aired, and directed him to the bathroom at Schaffel’s home — which also served as the offices of Neverland Valley Entertainment, one of Jackson’s companies. Schaffel served as the company’s president.
Soon after the film aired, Provencio said, he heard Schaffel referring to “killers.” When he asked what killers, Provencio said, Schaffel told him, “killers that were after the family.”Schaffel’s tone was “flippant … like it was nothing,” Provencio said. He said he raised the issue with another Jackson associate, Vincent Amen, who told him, “There are no killers.”The boy’s mother has testified that Jackson and his associates persuaded her that she and her children were in danger in order to get them to go along with damage-control efforts after the documentary aired, and that she was told repeatedly that helping Jackson was necessary to “appease the killers” who were threatening the family.The day the family left Jackson’s Neverland Ranch in March 2003, Provencio said he was in Michigan visiting his ill father. When he put in a call to Schaffel, he said Schaffel told him, “I can’t talk right now — they just escaped.”Provencio said he called Amen to find out what was happening: “He essentially was panicked, and he couldn’t talk right now because the family had escaped.” Defense ready to present its caseJackson’s lawyers could begin presenting witnesses on his behalf as early as Wednesday afternoon.
Actor Macaulay Culkin and two other witnesses prosecutors allege were molested by Jackson will be among the first to testify in the pop star’s defense, sources familiar with the case said.Those witnesses will be used to attack a key element of the prosecution’s case — that Jackson had a history of grooming boys for sexual abuse. Relatives of the two other witnesses will testify for the defense as well, the sources said.Culkin, now 24, has repeatedly denied allegations that anything untoward happened between him and Jackson when he spent time at the pop star’s Neverland Ranch as a teenager. In a May 2004 interview with CNN, he defended Jackson and said, “Nothing happened.”Superior Court Judge Rodney Melville allowed prosecutors to present testimony about the previous complaints in March.
Jackson never faced criminal charges stemming from those allegations, although his lawyers say he reached financial settlements with two boys who accused him of sexual abuse.Only one of the five boys mentioned in those allegations took the witness stand for the prosecution, telling jurors that Jackson initiated tickling sessions that escalated to the pop star fondling his genital area.
Evidence to support other allegations came from third-party witnesses who recounted seeing improper conduct.Prosecutors spent much of Monday and Tuesday laying out telephone records of hundreds of calls among Jackson’s entourage on key dates in the case. But under cross-examination, investigators said could not say whether Jackson himself was on any of the calls.Provencio testified that Jackson did not have his own mobile phone, and said his entourage would call a bodyguard or someone close to him when they needed to talk.”You can’t get hold of him directly,” he said.