Jackson prosecutor details alleged molestation
SANTA MARIA, California (CNN) -- In opening statements at Michael Jackson's child molestation trial, Santa Barbara District Attorney Tom Sneddon described in graphic detail how Jackson met a boy suffering from cancer, and allegedly abused him.
Sneddon said Jackson would seek out children who have no father, seeking to establish a paternal relationship with them, asking them to call him "Daddy" or "Michael Daddy."
The accuser's parents are divorced.
Sneddon's opening argument was followed by defense attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr.'s contention that the alleged victim's mother had a history of using her son's illness to pry money from celebrities.
The defense was to continue its opening argument on Tuesday. (More on defense opening.)
Sneddon said that in 2000 the boy had been diagnosed with stage four cancer, had undergone removal of a 16-pound tumor, his gall bladder, a kidney and his lymph nodes, and was being treated with chemotherapy.
Doctors had told the family to "prepare for his funeral, that he wasn't going to make it," Sneddon said.
But, he added about the accuser, "He's a fighter." The boy's cancer is in remission, and he played on his school's freshman football team.
During his treatment, the boy met Jamie Masada, owner of the Laugh Factory, a Los Angeles comedy club.
Masada grew to like the boy and arranged for him to meet some of the comedians who performed at his club, Sneddon said. When the boy said he wanted to meet Michael Jackson, the club owner arranged for that to happen, Sneddon said.
At first, the two exchanged telephone calls that sometimes lasted for hours, Sneddon said.
Jackson eventually invited the boy and his family to visit his Neverland Ranch outside Los Angeles. During the visit, Jackson took the boy aside and asked him to ask his parents if he could spend the night in Jackson's bedroom, Sneddon said.
The parents agreed, and the boy and one of his siblings went to Jackson's bedroom, Sneddon said.
In the room were Jackson, his alleged co-conspirator Frank Tyson, the two children and Jackson's son, Prince Michael, Sneddon said.
There, Tyson pulled out a laptop computer and proceeded to give the older children a tour of sexually explicit Web sites, Sneddon said.
At one point, when they came upon a woman whose breasts were exposed, Jackson said, "Got milk?" Sneddon told the jurors.
That night, the accuser slept alone on the floor, but the visit began a progression of ever-more intimate sessions with the singer that culminated in the children being left with Jackson without their parents being present, Sneddon said.
The accuser slept in the bed with Jackson in February and March 2003, Sneddon said.
Inside the room were suitcases and briefcases packed with sexually explicit material, including magazines titled Barely Legal and Hardcore, Sneddon said.
"In Jackson's private world, instead of cookies and milk, he substituted wine, vodka and bourbon," Sneddon said.
Sneddon said former Neverland employees and flight attendants on jets the family flew on would testify that Jackson gave alcohol to children and had been seen pouring alcohol for the alleged victim and his brother. Sometimes, they will testify, he hid it from view by putting it inside soda pop cans.
Jackson told the alleged victim that drinking was a sign of manhood, Sneddon said.
The district attorney added that a ranch employee will during the trial describe taking to Jackson's bedroom a full bottle of wine and a full bottle of vodka on a tray with glasses at night and finding them empty, the glasses dirty, the next morning.
The evenings' activities were not typical child fare, he said. "Instead of bedtime discussion ... and stories of Peter Pan, he's talking to the victim about masturbation, and that everybody does it," Sneddon said.
The whole process, Sneddon said, was intended to "change his victim's moral antenna," so that the boy would come to believe that such behavior was acceptable.
Sneddon added that a witness will also testify seeing Jackson masturbating himself with one hand, while the other hand was down the boy's pants.
Sneddon described the two-floor bedroom suite in detail: its single door required a password to enter, and was rigged with an alarm.
The accuser's brother will testify that at one point, Jackson placed a mannequin on the bed and simulated sexual intercourse with it, Sneddon said, and that on another occasion, Jackson appeared at the bedroom stairwell naked, with an erection, and said, "It's natural ... why don't you do the same?"
The brother, who is a year younger than the accuser, will also testify that he saw Jackson fondling his brother, Sneddon said.
Sneddon also described the impact of the broadcast two years ago of a documentary about the pop star.
"The defendant's world was rocked," Sneddon said about the program, in which Jackson acknowledged sleeping with children in the same bed, but denied anything improper had taken place.
Sneddon described the airing of the documentary as "a disaster," and said Jackson believed the accuser's family was "a dangerous loose end."
The district attorney added that Jackson felt it was "very, very difficult" to get control of the boy's mother.
Ultimately, the family agreed to participate in a separate video in which they declared that Jackson had done nothing improper.
Sneddon said that their cooperation was obtained through "extortion," and that an alleged co-conspirator told the mother that she would not get her child back unless she agreed to participate.
He added that he would detail the process by which the rebuttal video was made during the trial.
CNN's Miguel Marquez, Dree DeClamecy and Traci Tamura contributed to this report.
