Jackson defense rests after videotape

The accuser's taped descriptions were the last action taken at the trial.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
SANTA MARIA, Calif. -- The defense in the Michael Jackson molestation case suddenly rested Friday, moments after the prosecution presented a videotape of the pop star's accuser describing assaults in graphic detail.
After several days of threatening to reopen the case, the defense surprisingly refused to present any last-minute witnesses or evidence.
Lawyers will meet Tuesday to discuss jury instructions and other matters before closing arguments. The eight-woman, four-man jury will likely get the 10-count felony case next week.
The trial began with opening statements in February, and more than 140 witnesses testified during the more than 60 working days of the proceedings.
Friday's actions mean that the last image jurors will have during the Memorial Day weekend is that of the soft-spoken accuser explaining on video to Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department investigators how he was molested five times.
Taped accounts
The videotape was shot July 6, 2003, and showed Santa Barbara County sheriff's investigators Steve Robel and Paul Zelis asking questions. The examination took place at a Santa Barbara cottage used by the Sheriff's Department's Sexual Assault Response Team.
The beginning of the video seemed routine, as investigators asked the boy, then 13, to speak up. At minute 34, however, Robel asked the boy whether he had ever been molested by Jackson.
The boy paused for 16 seconds. He slouched, left elbow on an armrest.
"He [Jackson] started telling me you always have to masturbate because if you don't, you go crazy," the boy told investigators, then paused again.
"Something else happened, didn't it?" the investigator asked.
The boy paused for 30 more seconds, then went on:
"He said he wanted to show me how to masturbate. I said no. He said he would do it for me."
"Did he do it for you?"
Jackson "grabbed my private area," the boy said.
The boy on the tape said Jackson masturbated him five times, "every night that my little brother wasn't there." When he testified, the boy, now 15, described two acts of masturbation.
Event time line
On the tape, the boy said the encounters began after the family took a trip to Miami. "I guess after Miami, I slept in Michael Jackson's bed every night I was at Neverland."
The Miami trip was shortly after a British documentary aired in early February 2003. On the documentary, Jackson said he slept innocently with children. The singer also held hands with his accuser.
Jackson is accused of molesting the boy and of giving him alcohol to aid in the abuse. Jackson is also charged with conspiring with aides to control the family so they would give a favorable interview to offset the bad publicity from the British documentary.
On the tape played Friday, the boy described Jackson aide Frank Cascio, also known as Frank Tyson, as angry with the accuser's mother, who wanted to leave.
"He said he could have my mother killed," the boy said on the tape. "He kept saying he could have my mother killed. He was angry because my mother didn't want to stay there."