The mother of Michael Jackson’s accuser spent much of Friday’s proceedings engaged in bickering with the star’s lead defense attorney as he attacked her credibility and forced her to admit lying under oath twice in previous legal proceedings.
Attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr.'s aggressive cross-examination and the witness's long, rambling answers that often strayed from the subject prompted the judge to admonish both sides. The exchanges became so heated that at one point the judge threatened to shut down court for the day. "Do you want me to shut the trial down this afternoon?" Santa Barbara County Superior Court Judge Rodney Melville said after one exchange between the prosecution and defense over the woman's testimony. "You are not to engage in this kind of interaction with each other, or the witness."
Mesereau questioned the mother about her previous civil lawsuit against the department store J. C. Penney. In that suit she made allegations of rough treatment by security guards as they sought to apprehend her son for shoplifting.
Mesereau noted that in a sworn statement, the woman said she had never been abused by her husband at the time — an important issue, because her alleged injuries may have been caused by such violence.
"You were not telling the truth under oath when you made those statements," Mesereau said. The woman eventually responded, "This is correct," but claimed that she lied because she was embarrassed about the abuse. She also admitted to being untruthful when she said in the lawsuit that her husband was honest.
She attempted to excuse her lies by claiming that once she finally got away from her husband, she contacted her attorney in an effort to have her testimony corrected – after she had received a settlement in excess of $ 150,000 from the department store.
"I finally was liberated to say," she said, telling jurors that she filed for divorce "after (her husband) was finally arrested for domestic violence." Mesereau, however, made sure jurors knew her divorce filing came just five days after the case was settled.
The witness was also questioned about a report she made to police in which she accused her ex-husband of inappropriately touching their daughter. She initially refused to answer the question directly and instead turned to the jury and said, "No, he's wrong." She finally admitted to making the report but tried to downplay the allegation, claiming that “it was a one-sentence statement†given to the police after “they asked for a history†of problems in the family.
Mesereau also asked the woman about a child welfare investigation back in the 1990s, triggered after her son, the accuser, alleged she had abused him. She said the investigation by the state Division of Children and Family Services was initiated when a school nurse wanted to send her son home early, and the boy expressed reluctance to go. The nurse, interpreting the conversation as a sign of possible abuse, called DCFS. The witness stated that no action was ever taken against her, and she described her interaction with the DCFS caseworkers as "positive."
Earlier, the witness spoke of the rebuttal video in which she was effusive in her praise of Jackson. When Mesereau pressed her on the issue of whether she was “lying†when she made those positive comments regarding Jackson, she claimed that she was “acting†and merely following a script that she had memorized. She said that Jackson aides scripted almost every aspect of the video and also claimed that she had met up to 10 times with a Jackson aide in Neverland in order to discuss what she would say on the tape – a detail never mentioned in any of her previous interviews with police or attorneys.
The mother’s cross-examination began Friday morning, after prosecutors concluded their questioning of the woman by showing jurors surveillance videotapes, found in private investigator Brad Miller’s office, to support their claims that the family were being monitored.
Cross-examination of this witness will continue on Monday.
Source: AP/CNN/MJJForum/eMJey