Jackson defence to call Jay Leno
Defence lawyers in Michael Jackson’s child abuse trial in Santa Maria, California, are expected to call The Tonight Show host Jay Leno to testify today, and could call comedian Chris Tucker later in the day.
On Monday Jackson’s defence team rushed towards concluding their case by calling a series of witnesses who painted Janet Arvizo as a welfare cheat who exploited her son Gavin’s cancer to live lavishly at Jackson’s expense.
They tried to show Janet Arvizo was behind several money-making schemes and angrily rejected people who sought to help her with anything but cash. Her former sister-in-law testified Arvizo used profanity to denounce blood drives held for the accuser when he was fighting cancer.
“She told me that she didn’t need my (expletive) blood,” said the former sister-in-law, bursting into tears, “that she needed money.”
Jay Leno dedicated much of his Tonight Show monologue on Monday night to discussing his forthcoming court appearance.
Noting he has often poked fun at Jackson’s expense, Leno quipped: “I was called by the defence. Apparently they’ve never seen this programme.”
Referring to the current heat wave gripping Southern California, Leno said he’s been “sweating like a Cub Scout” at Jackson’s Neverland Ranch.
Leno was expected to testify that he once received a phone call from someone he believed to be Gavin Arvizo – Jackson’s accuser. Defence attorneys say Leno was one of several celebrities – including Jackson – the family tried to bilk out of money.
Jackson, 46, is accused of molesting Gavin Arvizo in February or March 2003 when he was 13, giving him alcohol and conspiring to hold his family captive to get them to rebut a documentary in which the boy appeared with Jackson as the entertainer said he let children into his bed for innocent, non-sexual sleepovers.
