My Life and Times

Pool photo by Joshua Gates WeisbergMichael Jackson arrived at court Thursday in Santa Maria, Calif., for the first day of closing arguments in his child-molesting trial.

June 3, 2005
Final Arguments in Jackson Trial Paint 2 Portraits
By JOHN M. BRODER

SANTA MARIA, Calif., June 2 - As they did through three months of sometimes bizarre testimony, lawyers for both sides in the child-molesting trial of Michael Jackson painted widely divergent portraits in their final arguments on Thursday of a singer whose fame once rivaled that of Elvis and the Beatles but who has in recent years retreated into a strange and private world.

Soon a jury of eight women and four men will be asked to cast a verdict on the man and his world, with incalculable consequences for his career, his fortune, his reputation, even his health. But whatever the jury finds, Mr. Jackson has been indelibly damaged by his tribulation in a central California courtroom, his secrets laid bare and his psyche picked apart as if by carrion birds.

The trial here is only the latest in a decade of reversals for Mr. Jackson, whose music career is stalled and whose debts are piling up at a dizzying pace. Even if he is acquitted, many people will continue to believe that he harbors an unhealthy fondness for young boys, whom he openly admits inviting into his bed. He insulates himself from reality at his 2,700-acre Neverland Valley Ranch, surrounded by zoo animals and well-paid loyalists who do not question his odd behavior.

Ronald J. Zonen, a senior deputy district attorney, called Mr. Jackson a "predator" who feasted upon weak boys from fatherless homes, luring them into his bedroom with long conversations and lavish gifts, then softening them up for sexual molesting with alcohol and pornography. The accuser in this case, a 15-year-old recovering cancer patient, is but the latest in a line of victims that goes back more than a decade, the prosecutor said.

By day, Mr. Zonen said, the boys played at Neverland, driving customized go-karts, playing the latest video games, enjoying carnival rides and gorging themselves on candy and ice cream.

"At night," Mr. Zonen said, "they entered into the world of the forbidden in Mr. Jackson's bedroom. Mr. Jackson's room was a veritable fortress, with locks and codes which the boys were given. And they learned about human sexuality from someone who was only too willing to be their teacher."

Mr. Jackson's lead lawyer, Thomas A. Mesereau Jr., dismissed the prosecution's account as a lurid fantasy woven by enemies of Mr. Jackson and a family seeking to exploit his fame and riches to become wealthy itself.

Mr. Mesereau described the accuser and his family as "con artists, actors and liars" who had insinuated themselves into Mr. Jackson's life and the lives of many other celebrities as part of a pattern of fraud and deceit. He said Mr. Jackson, whom he described as "childlike and different and offbeat and na?ve," had been the victim of such hustlers repeatedly in his life. That is why he is in constant financial trouble and frequently the target of schemers, Mr. Mesereau said.

The jury listened raptly to the two lawyers' arguments, which took all day on Thursday and are expected to be completed by midday Friday. A few of the 12 jurors and 8 alternates took notes. Mr. Jackson, clad in a dark suit and plaid vest, appeared to be paying attention, but his facial expression rarely changed.

Mr. Zonen flashed pictures of Mr. Jackson and a succession of young boys he had befriended, and, Mr. Zonen suggested, sexually abused. He also showed covers of pornographic magazines featuring young female models and pictures of nude adolescent boys from books found in Mr. Jackson's home.

Mr. Mesereau's visual aids consisted chiefly of slides reminding jurors of inconsistent testimony and a timeline of the alleged molesting that he said was utterly incredible.

In the seats directly behind the defense table sat the defendant's brothers Tito and Randy, members of the original Jackson Five, accompanied during the afternoon by Dick Gregory, the comedian and social activist.

Mr. Jackson's parents, Katherine and Joe, sat in the second row, as they have most days during the 65 days of at times excruciating testimony about their son's taste in pornography, the figurines of nude women in bondage outfits found in his bedroom, his alleged heavy drinking and his supposed practice of licking the heads of young boys - all of which Mr. Zonen reminded jurors of on Thursday.

The Santa Barbara County district attorney, Thomas W. Sneddon Jr., who has sought to put Mr. Jackson behind bars for more than a decade, chose to allow his deputy to deliver the closing argument. Mr. Zonen proved during trial to be a more effective questioner than his boss and appeared to have better rapport with the jury.

He delivered his argument in rapid-fire style with a tone of barely suppressed outrage at Mr. Jackson's behavior.

"This case is about the exploitation and sexual abuse of a 13-year-old cancer survivor by an international celebrity," he said at the beginning of his statement. He then tried to defend the boy's mother, whom the defense has portrayed as a grifter, as an abused spouse struggling to raise three teenagers and who never asked anyone for money.

Mr. Zonen acknowledged that she had committed welfare fraud by claiming benefits within days of receiving $32,000 in a civil settlement in a case she filed against J. C. Penney. "That was a bad mistake on her part, and she may yet have to suffer the consequences before this is all over with," he said.

Later, he described what he called Mr. Jackson's "grooming" of boys for sexual molesting. It begins with the selection of a vulnerable child, Mr. Zonen said.

"The lion on the Serengeti doesn't go after the strongest antelope," he said. "The predator goes after the weakest."

He said the accuser's testimony was credible and consistent and sufficient grounds to convict Mr. Jackson. "The suggestion that all this was planned and plotted and was part of a shakedown is nonsense," he said. "It's unmitigated rubbish."

Mr. Mesereau, whose tone ranged from angry to sarcastic to scornful, noted that Mr. Zonen had spent a sizable chunk of his time for closing arguments in an attack on Mr. Mesereau and what Mr. Zonen called Mr. Mesereau's broken promises to the jury in his opening statement.

"When a prosecutor does that, you know he's in trouble," Mr. Mesereau said, looking straight at the jury. "This is not a popularity contest between lawyers. This is about the life, the future, the freedom and the reputation of Michael Jackson. That's what is about to be placed in your hands."

He said the prosecution's case rose or fell on the credibility of the accuser, his brother and his mother. "You've got to believe them beyond a reasonable doubt," he said. "You've got to believe them all the way. And it's impossible."

Mr. Mesereau said the prosecution had introduced the pornography found at Neverland into the trial without any direct evidence that the singer had shown any of it to the accuser. He said it was part of a "mean-spirited, nasty, barbaric attempt to demonize Mr. Jackson."

He added: "They have dirtied him up because he's human. But they haven't proven their case. They can't."

He said the accuser and his brother were cunning and street-smart youths from the east side of Los Angeles who had been coached by their parents to ingratiate themselves with celebrities and then wheedle money out of them. They raided the liquor cabinets at Neverland and brought their own "girlie" magazines, Mr. Mesereau said.

According to the prosecution, he said, "it was all Michael Jackson taking these innocent little lambs and corrupting their minds, and it's baloney."

Mr. Mesereau said that this case had turned Mr. Jackson's life "topsy-turvy," and had left him lonely and unable to trust anyone around him. "But he's not a criminal," Mr. Mesereau said.

As he was leaving the courtroom at the end of a draining day, Mr. Jackson was asked how he felt. He tented his fingers before him and whispered, "I'm O.K."

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