Jackson Case Gets Personal
Child molestation charges against Michael Jackson are being driven by "money and revenge," said defense attorney Mark Geragos, who vowed to derail the alleged victim's credibility and fight what he called a prosecutor's vendetta.
For District Attorney Thomas Sneddon, whose similar 1993 case against the pop singer evaporated when the accuser reportedly accepted millions in settlement money, the charges filed Thursday represent a second chance to convict the fading pop star before the prosecutor begins his planned retirement.
Unlike the 1993 case, Sneddon says, this time he has a cooperative witness who isn't interested in a piece of Jackson's fortune.
Despite speculation that the district attorney would reveal some details of the case, Thursday's filing proved to be a thin three-page document, reports CBS News Correspondent Jerry Bowen.
The self-styled "King of Pop" faces seven counts of molesting a child under the age of 14. He also was charged with two counts of plying the boy with "an intoxicating agent" to make it easier to carry out the assaults. A source speaking for the family on condition of anonymity told The Associated Press the intoxicating agent was wine.
The molestation charges each carry between three and eight years in prison.
Geragos denounced the allegations as driven by money and vengeance, and said Jackson, who is free on $3 million bail, looks forward to resolving the matter in court.
"Anybody else who knows anything about the history of these accusers, anybody who knows anything about the history of the investigators and the axes they have to grind know that these charges are not only categorically untrue, but they're driven, driven by two things: money and revenge. And we will prove that," Geragos said at a news conference Thursday.
Authorities raided Jackson's Neverland Ranch last month and arrested him days later on suspicion of child molestation. Sneddon agreed to delay Jackson's arraignment a week to Jan. 16, and Jackson is being allowed to go to Great Britain to fulfill a pair of previous commitments, reports CBS News Correspondent Steve Futterman.
Sneddon says he has a credible witness and a strong case, but appears to have several hurdles to overcome to win a conviction.
For starters, all the charges concern one boy, 13-years-old at the time, who appeared with Jackson on a British documentary. The boy denied there was any abuse then, but district attorney says the boy was abused after that documentary aired in the United States.
"I think everyone expected there would be more victims coming out of the woodwork and that hasn't happened," Defense attorney Mickey Sherman told the CBS News Early Show. "I think that's rather significant."
Sneddon must persuade a jury to accept the timeline of the alleged crimes.
Five of the counts state that Jackson molested the boy, a 14-year-old cancer victim he had befriended, sometime between the approximate dates of Feb. 7 and March 10. The other two counts, and the charges of giving the boy an intoxicant, state that those crimes allegedly occurred between the approximate dates of Feb. 20 and March 10.
That means Jackson, 45, would have begun molesting the boy amid the swift and fervent criticism he received after the Feb. 6 airing of the documentary, in which he told of letting children sleep in his bedroom and sometimes in his bed when they visited his ranch.
Jackson and his accuser were shown holding hands during that show and saying they slept in the same room but not in the same bed.
Los Angeles County child welfare officers began investigating Jackson's relationship with the child on Feb. 14, prompted by a complaint to a county hot line from a school administrator who saw the show.
The investigation, which ended Feb. 27, found there was no basis for molestation allegations after the boy, his mother and his siblings denied them. Details of the interview were included in a memo leaked to the media this month.
Sneddon said Thursday the boy may not have wanted to talk about the molestation at first and that Los Angeles County officials may have been too busy to investigate fully. He said the child services investigation would not be a factor in the case once the jury views his other evidence.
Geragos said he conducted videotaped and audiotaped interviews with the mother and child himself last February. He said they both praised Jackson's generosity and described him as a father figure to the boy, who was introduced to the singer through the owner of a West Hollywood comedy club.
Michael E. Manning, divorce attorney for the accuser's mother, told The Associated Press last month that he remembered the mother speaking well of Jackson in April or May, long after the abuse is alleged to have occurred.
"'He was really good to us' — that's what she said at the time," Manning said in the Nov. 24 interview. The next day, Manning's secretary said the boy's mother had asked the attorney to stop speaking to the media.
The boy's family also filed a lawsuit claiming the boy, his brother and mother were beaten by mall security guards in 1998 after the boy left a Southern California J.C. Penney store carrying clothes that had not been paid for. The lawsuit also alleged the mother was sexually assaulted. The family received a $137,500 settlement.
Russell Halpern, an attorney for the boy's father, has said the boy's mother had a "Svengali-like ability" to make her children lie in testimony. The father pleaded no contest to child cruelty in 2002 and spousal abuse in 2001. They are now divorced.
Sneddon gave reporters a news release Thursday giving his answers to the questions he says he is most commonly asked about the Jackson case. Among them was whether the child's mother is credible.
"Yes, she is credible," he said, adding the family has "said repeatedly that they are not interested in money."