Man who accused Jackson pleads poor memory
A man who gave emotional testimony that he was molested by Michael Jackson more than a decade ago repeatedly pleaded a poor memory today as the pop star’s defence cross-examined him about accounts he gave to authorities as recently as December.
Jason Francia, 24, clashed with Jackson attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr, who attempted to highlight inconsistencies between the story that the witness told on the stand and his earlier accounts.
“I don’t mean to sound like I’m wasting your time,” he told the lawyer at one point. “It’s hard being up here.”
“Just answer my question,” Mesereau said.
The witness, the son of a former Jackson housekeeper, was called by the prosecution on Monday in an effort to show Jackson has a pattern of inappropriate behaviour with young boys, which would support the allegations of a teenage boy who has accused Jackson of molesting him in 2003.
The housekeeper’s son received 2.4 million dollars (£1.3m) from Jackson in 1994 but no criminal case was filed. The jury was told of the settlement but not the sum, and in brief testimony the boy’s attorney, Kris Kallman, acknowledged the terms involved no admission of wrongdoing and specified it was intended to protect Jackson’s reputation.
The former housekeeper also took the witness box and said she worked at Jackson’s various homes from about 1986 to 1991 and brought her son to work at Jackson’s request. She said she once became concerned when she saw Jackson reclining with her son in his lap, and the singer told her he was trying to get the boy to read.
She also said another boy about seven or eight years old stayed with Jackson several times in a one-year period and that one time she went into Jackson’s room, saw Jackson’s underwear and the boy’s underwear next to a shower in which were two figures she believed to be the singer and the boy.
On Monday, her son said Jackson twice touched his clothes over his crotch and once reached under his clothes and touched his genitals during tickling games in the years when he was 7 to 10 years old. He also said that in the first two incidents Jackson stuck 100 (£55) into his clothes.
He also said he told no one until 1993, when detectives investigating another boy’s allegations came to him. That interview was followed by others in 1994 and in October, November and December 2004.
Under cross-examination today, he acknowledged that in his 1993 interview he initially said Jackson did not molest him. Mesereau asked if investigators became aggressive, calling Jackson a “molester” and cursing.
The witness said he did not remember details of the interview.
“It was only after you were pushed real hard by the sheriffs that you began to say anything like that,” Mesereau said, drawing an objection from the prosecution which was sustained by Judge Rodney S. Melville.
Francia said he could not remember who was present or what was said in most of the interviews but recalled a few details from the first interview in 1993 because, he said, he had listened to a recording of it before he took the stand.
The witness also appeared to contradict himself. Francia answered yes when Jackson’s defence lawyer asked if the singer would give the boy money when he read a book or received a good grade. However, when a prosecutor questioned him about an hour later, the witness said Jackson didn’t give him money for good grades or reading books.
Mesereau, the defence lawyer, confronted the witness with a statement he made during one of his interviews in which he said: “They made me come up with a lot more stuff. They kept pushing. I wanted to hit them in the head.”
The witness said he did not remember the statement.
