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(Photo: AP/Pool)
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Actor Chris Tucker was called as the defense's final witness. Tucker, sidekick to Jackie Chan in the "Rush Hour" movies, said that he met Jackson's accuser after the boy's father introduced himself at a comedy club and asked him to take part in a benefit.
Tucker said that a few days after the benefit the boy told him it hadn't made any money, so he wired "probably $1,500 or more" to a foundation for the family.
Tucker said he also took the boy's family to an amusement park and on shopping trips to a mall. They also visited him on a movie set in Las Vegas, staying for "a week or two."
He said most of his contact with the family was through phone calls to the accuser, but mentioned one call from the mother in 2001. “She was crying on the phone," Tucker recalled. "Just crying and crying and crying, about how I was the kid’s brother and all this stuff.”
Returning to the stand for a second day, Tucker recalled how he once warned Jackson to be wary of the accuser and his family.
Tucker said he found the accuser to be a "smart kid, cunning at times." He said his suspicions about the family set in when they came to his Las Vegas movie set and refused to leave. He said he paid for their hotel and expenses, but after several weeks they were still there.
He said that under pressure from the family he arranged a private flight to Miami for them after they discovered that Jackson was there, and in Florida he took Jackson aside and warned him to be wary of the family.
"I said, 'Michael, something ain't right,'" he told the court. "Watch out."
Just before departing for the Miami trip, he said he gave the mother a truck. He said he gave her the keys despite the fact something felt wrong about the situation. “I knew something mentally was not right” with the mother, he said.
On cross-examination District Attorney Tom Sneddon implied that Tucker encouraged the family by asking them to come to his brother's wedding, but Tucker said they invited themselves.
When Sneddon showed a photograph of the family at the wedding with Tucker, the comedian quipped, "That's a nice photograph. Can I get it?"
Sneddon snapped back, "That depends on whether you're a good boy."
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