More phone records presented to Jackson jury
The jury in Michael Jackson’s child molestation trial was presented with more phone records today as prosecutors sought to bolster the conspiracy portion of the case against the pop star.
Prosecutors have been presenting records showing dozens of calls between phones belonging to Jackson associates around the time a damaging documentary about the singer was broadcast in February 2003.
During an initial round of records presented yesterday, a detective conceded that no calls were tied to Jackson.
Today, district attorney’s investigator David Saunders presented records he said showed that Paul Hugo, an associate of one of the men prosecutors have identified as unindicted co-conspirators, was in Brazil on March 2, 2003, and made calls to Marc Schaffel and Vincent Amen, who are both named as co-conspirators.
Prosecutors contend that at the time members of Jackson’s inner circle were plotting to send the boy, who is now Jackson’s accuser, and his family to Brazil in the aftermath of the documentary.
The programme showed the accuser with Jackson, and the singer saying he allowed children to sleep in his bed but that the activity was not sexual.
On cross-examination, defence lawyer Robert Sanger noted that phone calls only showed the phones were used, not who was speaking on the phones. He focused on Jackson’s Neverland ranch to show that a call to or from the estate would not necessarily involve Jackson.
“What you refer to as the defendant’s home is in fact 2,700 acres, correct?” Sanger asked.
Asked if he could be sure of who made the calls from Hugo’s phone, Saunders said: “I’d say it’s a reasonable inference that he did.”
Sanger asked that the testimony be stricken because it was speculative, but Judge Rodney Melville refused.
The records testimony was presented as the prosecution neared the end of its case. Prosecutors said last week that they intended to rest today, but it was not known if they remained on schedule.
The jury was not told how the calls support the case, but prosecutors are expected to say in final arguments that they show frantic activity in an effort to stem the damage caused by the Living With Michael Jackson documentary.
Prosecutor Mag Nicola spent hours yesterday showing jurors charts of calls, primarily between the phones of Schaffel, Amen and Frank Cascio – another unindicted alleged co-conspirator who is also known as Tyson – and the phones of the accuser’s mother and an assortment of Jackson employees and lawyers.
The most talkative member of the group apparently was Cascio, whose phone was involved in 38 calls to Schaffel and 19 to Amen on one day.
The charted calls began in February 2003 and continued into the following month. The first series of calls occurred during a trip to Miami by Jackson, his entourage, the accuser and the boy’s family. Prosecutors showed calls to and from the presidential suite at the Miami resort where Jackson stayed.
In a key question during cross-examination, Sanger asked the witness, sheriff’s Detective Craig Bonner, if Jackson could be linked to the calls.
“In all these phone records you had were you ever able to determine if Michael Jackson was on a single call?” the attorney asked.
“No,” said Bonner.
Bonner also acknowledged that the records only reflected whose phones were used to make the calls, not who actually spoke.
Bonner acknowledged, for instance, that there were many people at Schaffel’s office, and agreed it was unlikely that a one-minute call to an attorney’s office would get through a receptionist in that time. The defence similarly suggested that some calls to the resort would only have reached a receptionist.
Jackson, 46, is accused of molesting a 13-year-old boy at his Neverland ranch, giving him alcohol and conspiring to hold the boy’s family captive to rebut the documentary. He denies all charges.
