se espera que hoy Messereau de caña a la niña.
http://news.newspress.com/topsports/030405jackson.htm
THE JACKSON TRIAL: Boy's sister says she saw singer give him wine
3/4/05
By DAWN HOBBS
NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
Defense will cross-examine 18-year-old today
The sister of the boy who has accused Michael Jackson of molestation testified Thursday that she saw the entertainer serving her brothers wine in a cellar at his Neverland Valley Ranch.
She was 16 at the time, and her brothers were 13 and 12.
"I saw Mr. Jackson pour wine into cups and everybody had a cup," she testified, adding that she tried some but didn't like it. Afterward, she testified, the group played video games, listened to music and drank more wine.
The sister is the first member of the accuser's family to take the stand. How the jury perceives the testimony by the boy and his relatives is crucial to the prosecution's case. The defense team has signaled its intention to attack the family's credibility.
The 18-year-old remained composed and clear during five hours of questioning by Santa Barbara County District Attorney Tom Sneddon, who toned down his sometimes brash style. The father of nine seemed to have a good rapport with the teenager, who maintained eye contact with the prosecutor unless he asked her to address the jurors directly.
Mr. Jackson listened to the testimony, occasionally conferring with his defense team, as he sat at the counsel table wearing a black suit, a mosaic-patterned vest, a black velvet armband and black sandals with purple socks.
The sister also testified that in February and March of 2003, the entertainer's associates kept the family hidden in hotels and at Neverland, supposedly to protect them from death threats.
But what they really wanted, she said, was for the family to appear in a video to rebut a British documentary in which Mr. Jackson is seen holding hands with her brother and stating that he shares his bed with children.
Jurors appeared sympathetic to the soft-spoken young woman who told them about a physically abusive father and that her brother asked to meet the world-famous Mr. Jackson when the boy was weakened from cancer.
Many jurors looked pained when they saw a photograph of the boy after chemotherapy -- when he appeared frail, with little hair, his complexion pale and dark circles around his eyes. Four of the 12 jurors had written on their juror questionnaires that either they or someone in their family had had cancer.
Mr. Sneddon is expected to finish questioning the boy's sister this morning, and then lead defense lawyer Thomas Mesereau is slated to cross-examine her. The defense has maintained the children are liars who have been coached by a greedy mother out for money.
Mr. Jackson has pleaded not guilty to child molestation, administering alcohol to commit a felony and conspiracy.
The accuser's brother may take the stand next, News-Press sources said.
The fourth day of the Jackson trial began with jurors receiving a virtual video tour of Neverland, including Mr. Jackson's bedroom. Sheriff's Deputy Al Lafferty testified that he filmed the area before dozens of law enforcement officers scoured the estate searching for evidence of child molestation on Nov. 18, 2003. Jurors saw the elaborately decorated home complete with chandeliers, Roman statues, life-size mannequins of Batman and Superman, a room full of dolls and a room of toys. Inside Mr. Jackson's bedroom suite, they saw a painting of the Last Supper above the entertainer's king-size bed.
The prosecution showed jurors the video so they would be familiar with the layout of the house during witness testimony.
While on the stand, the accuser's sister said that she had been in Mr. Jackson's bedroom only once but described the same scene that jurors saw in the video, with one notable difference. She testified that when she was in the bedroom with her brothers, there were half-filled liquor bottles on every level surface. She told jurors that she saw Mr. Jackson lie on the bed and the boys climb in on each side of him. She left the room after they began watching a video.
She said she spent much of her time at Neverland alone because her brothers were always with Mr. Jackson and she felt unwelcome.
Her testimony also covered a trip to Florida and back, a middle-of-the-night drive from Neverland to her grandparents' home in El Monte and a stay in a Calabasas hotel.
The testimony spanned the period during which the prosecution alleges that Mr. Jackson and his associates conspired to keep the family isolated and afraid in an attempt to force them to cooperate for a video that would counteract the public relations damage done by the British documentary.
The family flew to Florida on entertainer Chris Tucker's private jet and were kept inside a Miami hotel room with the curtains drawn for two days, the girl testified. She said she saw her brother and Mr. Jackson go into the bedroom of his suite in the hotel several times.
She testified that Mr. Jackson and her brother were passing a Diet Coke can back and forth and whispering in each other's ears on the flight back from Florida. Flight attendants are expected to testify that the soda can contained white wine.
The girl's testimony mentioned Ronald Konitzer and Dieter Weisner, business associates of Mr. Jackson who the prosecution alleges were part of the conspiracy. They have not been charged.
She told jurors that her mother convinced a Neverland employee, Jesus Salas, to drive the family to her grandmother's El Monte home.
"We were kind of scared the way Ronald and Dieter were real aggressive. (My brother) didn't want to leave. . . . We just wanted to leave."
The following day, someone brought them back to Neverland, she said.
The sister also talked about the family's stay at a Calabasas hotel and said two other alleged conspirators, Vincent Amen and Frank Tyson, told them the family was going to be taken to Brazil. When Mr. Sneddon showed the teen a passport application with her picture on it, she said neither the handwriting nor signature was hers.
When asked if the relationship between her and her brother had changed while he was at Neverland, she turned to jurors and said: "Me and my brother were very close, but he didn't want to be near me. . . . It just felt weird. He really didn't want to talk to me. . . . He didn't want to see my mom. He just thought differently."
Dawn Hobbs is also a news analyst for NBC and MSNBC. Her e-mail is
dhobbs@newspress.com.
CASE FILE
MAJOR DEVELOPMENTS: The 18-year-old sister of Michael Jackson's accuser testified that Mr. Jackson told her family not to watch a documentary featuring him with the boy, and that she once caught Mr. Jackson, her brother and others drinking alcohol in a wine cellar under the arcade at Neverland. She also testified that her family was held at a hotel where Mr. Jackson's employees told them not to leave their room, and that he shared a soda can with his accuser on a plane. Prosecutors say it contained wine.
WHAT'S NEXT: More testimony from the sister.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: ''Interesting. Frustrating.'' -- Michael Jackson, asked what it was like to see the sister in court nearly two years after her family left Neverland for the last time
-- ASSOCIATED PRESS
:*) :ily: jajajaja como molan esas sandalias con esos calcetines, tipico de Mike :jajaja: parece que hoy quiso sentirse más comodo
