On Tuesday in the Jackson trial, the first witness to take the stand was comedy club owner and comedian Jamie Masada. While being prompted by deputy district attorney Ron Zonen during direct examination, Masada asserted the accuser's ill health when he befriended the accuser and his family and also stressed on how the accuser's biological father was scheming for money and painted the mother as a honest woman with moral intent.
He said the boy was near death with cancer in June 2000. He told jurors about fundraisers he held for the family and said the boy's father repeatedly asked him for money for food, gas and rent.
He described how the cancer stricken boy asked to meet his idol, Michael Jackson, and said he made phone calls in an attempt to arrange that meeting. Mr. Jackson called the boy days later in his hospital room and eventually invited him to his ranch.
When asked if he's ever met the famous defendant who was sitting across the room, he replied no and said "How are you?" to Jackson, to which Jackson responded with a smile and wave.
Jamie Masada testified that he took the boy and his mother to his longtime attorney William Dickerman to see if he could persuade television stations to stop showing the video, which aired on ABC, VH1 and MTV. This was as Masada claims was because the boy was being harassed after his appearance in the Bashir "Living With Michael Jackson" documentary.
He also took Mr. Dickerman, the boy and his mother to Larry Feldman, the same attorney who negotiated the $20 million settlement between Mr. Jackson and the family of another boy who accused him of molestation in 1993.
Mr. Dickerman and Mr. Feldman are expected to take the stand as prosecution witnesses.
Mr. Zonen asked Mr. Masada to describe a phone call he received from the accuser's mother while she was at the ranch a couple weeks after the documentary aired in February 2003.
"She was upset," Mr. Masada said. "She was crying. . . . She said they were holding her and her kids against their will. She said, 'I need to get out of here.' "
Prosecutors allege that Mr. Jackson and his associates held the mother and her children captive in hotels and at the ranch until they agreed to make a video that would rebut the Martin Bashir documentary.
Masada's statements are almost identical to that given by Louise Palanker,a guest comedian at the comedy club who testified that she received a panic-stricken call from the boys mother claiming that she and her children were held captive by Jackson employees.
But under cross-examination, Palanker and Masada both testified that they never called police about the family's alleged captivity. Masada also claims that the mother stated that she does not want any money but just friends and a prayer.
On cross-examination, Mr. Mesereau revealed that Masada told authorities in a December 2003 interview that the boy's parents repeatedly asked him for money.
Next on the stand was flight attendant Cynthia Ann Bell who served Jackson and the accuser and his family in the now infamous flight back from Miami to California.
Under cross-examination by lead defense lawyer Thomas Mesereau, Ms. Bell described what she saw on the chartered flight from Miami to Santa Barbara in February 2003.
She told jurors that the boy was rude and out of control and characterized Mr. Jackson as a quiet, gentle man.
"(The boy) was unusually rude, discourteous," Ms. Bell testified. "I remember him talking about how, 'I got this watch from Michael and it's real expensive.' . . . He was obnoxious. "When I served him food, he said 'This isn't warm. This isn't the way it's supposed to be.' It was embarrassing to have him on board, actually."
She then described Mr. Jackson as "soft-spoken."
"Typically, I'd have to kneel to gain eye contact with Mr. Jackson," Ms. Bell testified. "He would touch my arm when we were communicating."
Her testimony appeared to frustrate prosecutors and made jurors raise their eyebrows, especially when she revealed that the accuser's older sister ordered wine on the flight from Miami. Bell under cross examination was consistent with what she stated to prosecutor Zonen where she said, she never saw the entertainer serve the minors on the flight any alcohol nor was it Jackson's assertion to serve him wine in a diet coke can but was rather her idea.
The sister had testified that the only time she drank alcohol was when Jackson gave it to her and her brothers at Neverland Valley Ranch and that she didn't like it.
The sister had also testified that she saw Jackson sharing his Diet Coke can with her brother, who appeared intoxicated. The boy himself testified that he drank a little on the flight, but was not drunk.
But under cross-examination by Mr. Mesereau, Ms. Bell said she did not see Mr. Jackson give wine to the boy and denied that the youth was intoxicated.
The boy has accused Mr. Jackson of plying him with alcohol and then molesting him at Neverland in the spring of 2003.
Source: Newspress/MJJForum/eMJey