Accuser’s Sister Takes the Stand at Jackson Trial
The college freshman says the singer drank wine with young boys, including her brother, and held her family captive at Neverland.
Speaking in a little-girl voice that sometimes trailed off, the 18-year-old college freshman came across as earnest and sympathetic in her testimony at Jackson’s child-molestation trial. However, she has yet to face cross-examination by Jackson’s attorneys, who contend that her mother is a con artist who manipulated her children into making phony claims against the pop star.
The daughter and mother bear a striking resemblance to each other, with the daughter even wearing a similar black suit and white blouse to testify. The daughter on Thursday appeared composed, while her mother was combative and dramatic at a pretrial hearing last fall.
Under questioning from Santa Barbara County Dist. Atty. Tom Sneddon, the young woman spoke of growing up in an East Los Angeles “bachelor’s apartment” with her parents and two younger brothers. She said her father abused the entire family, hitting her mother “too many times to count.” The couple divorced several years ago.
Asked to identify photos of figures in the case that were projected on a big screen at the front of the courtroom, she paused at her mother’s.
“That’s my mommy,” she said. Jackson, 46, is charged with molesting her brother two years ago, when he was 13, and conspiring to force the boy and his family to appear in a video tribute to him. The so-called rebuttal video, which eventually aired on the Fox network, was created to counter a TV broadcast in which Jackson admitted to enjoying sleepovers with boys.
In court on Thursday, the boy’s sister said she saw Jackson pour cups of white wine in his Neverland wine cellar for her two brothers and “Baby Rubba,” the young brother of Jackson aide Frank Tyson. She also acknowledged having some herself.
Prosecutors have accused Jackson of plying the alleged molestation victim with wine and vodka over several weeks in order to seduce him.
It was a twisted path that brought the family back to Jackson’s ranch for weeks in February and March 2003. Three years before, the boy, thought to be terminally ill with cancer, told a family friend that he wanted to meet Jackson. The friend, Hollywood comedy club owner Jamie Masada, arranged it, the sister testified.
The mother and her three children made a number of Neverland trips afterward. After Jackson hadn’t seen them for more than a year, he summoned the family up to the ranch for what turned out to be a fateful appearance in the 2003 documentary, Martin Bashir’s “Living With Michael Jackson.”
Days after the show was broadcast in Europe, the girl, her mother and her two brothers were whisked to Florida on the private jet of comedian Chris Tucker, an acquaintance from the comedy club as well as a friend of Jackson. It was on that trip, the sister testified, that she first had a hint that Jackson and her brother were drinking together.
“He was just very hyper, very talkative, running around — just very playful, more than usual,” she said of her brother.
On the charter jet returning from Miami, she said she sat across a small table from Jackson and her brother. The pop star and the boy were whispering and sipping from a Diet Coke can they passed back and forth. At one point, Jackson took off his jewel-encrusted watch and gave it to his young friend, later telling him it was worth $75,000.
Landing in California, Jackson and the entourage were taken to Neverland. On the witness stand Thursday, the sister said Jackson’s aides had told her mother that death threats had been made against them and they had to be secluded on the ranch for their protection.
But the arrangement frightened the mother and daughter, the young woman testified.
“I didn’t understand what was going on,” she said. “There was all this secrecy.” She said she was staying in guest cottages with her mother and hardly saw either of her brothers, who were staying with Jackson in the main house.
Ultimately, the family left in the middle of the night, persuading a houseman to drive them to relatives in El Monte. Twelve hours later, the mother changed her mind and returned.
Another middle-of-the-night trip occurred when the family finally participated in the rebuttal video, shot at the home of a cameraman in the San Fernando Valley.
In court on Thursday, the sister said they recited from a script that was packed with lies.
Asked by Sneddon whether Jackson really helped them with their homework, as she stated in the video, she snorted.
“They took us out of school,” said the young woman. “There was no homework to help us with.”
Sometime after the rebuttal video was shot, the mother and her three children were taken to a hotel in Calabasas, where they were to prepare for a Jackson-financed trip to Brazil.
During the hotel stay, Jackson assistants Vinnie Amen and Tyson kept constant watch on the family, taking a room near theirs to make sure they did not flee, she testified. A Jackson bodyguard mounted the same watch in the hotel lobby.
“Vinnie and Frank said not to leave,” she testified. “We didn’t even try to go to the swimming pool. We didn’t bother to ask — we knew the answer would be no.”
Defense attorneys have argued the mother was eager to get to Brazil and that the Calabasas hotel stay was for a shopping spree, courtesy of Jackson.