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The Michael Jackson Trial

Accuser's brother cites nerves for contradictions


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Defense attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr., right, questions the brother of Jackson's accuser Wednesday.
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Jackson's defense team cross-examines the accuser's brother.
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SANTA MARIA, California (CNN) -- The brother of the teenage boy accusing Michael Jackson of child molestation cited nervousness Wednesday for giving different versions of an incident in which he claimed to have walked in on Jackson groping his brother.

Under questioning by prosecutors, the brother described an incident where he said he walked up a set of stairs into Jackson's bedroom at Neverland Ranch and saw Jackson with one hand down his sleeping brother's pants, while sexually gratifying himself with the other.

But Wednesday, Jackson attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr. confronted the brother with a statement he made to investigators from the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department, in which he said he witnessed that incident while sitting on a couch in the bedroom -- and that his brother was not merely sleeping but passed out from drinking alcohol.

"This isn't what you said yesterday," Mesereau said. When the brother tried to explain the shifting details by saying he had been nervous during the police interview, the defense attorney pointedly asked, "Because you were nervous, you didn't get the facts right?"

"Yes," the brother replied.

But when Santa Barbara County District Attorney Thomas Sneddon questioned the brother during redirect, the boy told the prosecutor that he had no doubts about his testimony that he had twice seen Jackson groping his brother.

"Were you telling the truth?" Sneddon asked.

"Yes," the brother replied.

Bedroom suite security

During Mesereau's cross-examination Wednesday, the brother testified about the elaborate security leading into Jackson's two-story bedroom suite.

He said a video camera allowed people inside the bedroom to view the hall leading to the suite, and there were seven locks on the door. The hall was also equipped with an alarm that rang a bell in the bedroom when someone came through, he said.

One of the door locks was opened by a keypad in the hall; the other six could only be opened from the inside, the brother said.

The brother testified Tuesday that on the two occasions when he saw Jackson molesting his brother, he came through door, which was unlocked, and went up the stairs. But on cross-examination Wednesday, he said he had punched the code into the keypad.

"Why would you use the code if the doors were unlocked?" Mesereau asked. The brother explained that he meant the other six locks had been unlocked.

On Tuesday, the brother testified that he set off the hall alarm on his way into the bedroom on the occasions where he saw Jackson molest his brother. Trying to explain why the bell did not wake up his brother or alert Jackson to his presence, he said he did not believe the bell would have been audible with the door to the suite closed.

Defense plays videos

The defense played a video, produced for an in-house television channel at Neverland, in which Jackson is shown in a montage with his accuser -- gaunt and bald from cancer treatments -- strolling around the ranch with Jackson's hit song, "I'll Be There" playing.

In another video played for the jury by the defense, the accuser's brother is the narrator of a tour around Neverland, in which he is seen with a microphone in his hand and does an interview with the accuser. In contrast to the brother's sometimes rambling and confused demeanor on the stand, he comes across as articulate and forceful in the video.

Mesereau pressed him on whether he wants to be a movie star, as his mother claimed in an earlier video introduced by the prosecution. The brother denied that he did.

"I'm too shy to act," he said.

The defense also played excerpts from a video introduced earlier by the prosecution, which was prepared by the Jackson camp in February 2003 to respond to the Bashir documentary.

In that video, the accuser and members of his family, including his brother, mother and sister, make laudatory comments about Jackson.

The brother told Mesereau that he lied in the video when he said the children called Jackson "father" and that Jackson helped him with his homework. The boy said he would have "said anything" to get through the filming, which took place in the middle of the night.

"I was just trying to get out of there," the brother said.

The prosecution contends that the family was intimidated into making the video and held against their will by Jackson associates. But outtakes from the filming shown by the defense show family members relaxed, even laughing.

Asked by Mesereau if he was "in fear" during the taping, the brother replied, "I was just sleepy."

Jackson was indicted in April by a state grand jury on 10 felony counts for incidents that allegedly occurred in February and March 2003.

The 46-year-old singer is charged with four counts of committing a lewd act on a child; one count of conspiracy to commit child abduction, false imprisonment and extortion; one count of attempting to commit a lewd act on a child; and four counts of administering an intoxicating agent to assist in the commission of a felony.

Jackson has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

CNN's Miguel Marquez, Kimberly Osias and Dree De Clamecy contributed to this report.


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