Jackson Judge Nixes Larry King

The mother of Michael Jackson's accuser complained that she and her children were being kept away from the pop star during the time period prosecutors say one of her sons was being molested, a witness testified Thursday.

Azja Pryor, a Hollywood casting assistant and the girlfriend of movie star Chris Tucker, said the mother complained to her in early March 2003 that two German associates of Jackson had stepped in to keep her family away.

"I asked, 'Does Michael know anything about this?' She said, 'They won't let us around him because they know the children tug at his heart strings,"' Pryor testified.

The time period she cited is critical because prosecutors allege Jackson molested the then-13-year-old accuser between Feb. 20 and March 12, 2003.

When the accuser's mother testified in the trial, she bitterly spoke out against "the Germans" and claimed they were conspiring with Jackson to hold her family captive.

Pryor began her testimony with a few tears, talking about how she met the family in 2001 when the boy was battling cancer. She said she and the boy's mother would talk for hours at a time on the phone, but the mother never complained to her about Jackson.

Pryor took the stand after Judge Rodney S. Melville refused to allow the defense to present testimony by CNN's Larry King that attorney Larry Feldman, who once represented the accuser's mother, had told him the mother was "wacko" and out for money.

The judge ruled out testimony by the talk show host and another man present at the conversation on grounds they were not able to say the lawyer directly quoted the accuser's mother.

King left the court without appearing before the jury, but the judge later handed the defense a victory, allowing jurors to see a video tour of the singer's Neverland ranch.

Besides the ranch's amusement park rides and zoo animals, the video shows numerous clocks, countering testimony by members of the accuser's family that they were not able to keep track of time while Jackson allegedly held them against their will.

District Attorney Tom Sneddon vehemently opposed the video, saying much of it was "propaganda." He cited in particular a scene that showed a note written on a chalkboard by one of Jackson's children, saying "I love you daddy."

In addition to molestation, Jackson, 46, is accused of giving the boy wine and conspiring to hold his family captive to get them to rebut a TV documentary in which Jackson said he let children sleep in his bed but that it was non-sexual.

Pryor smiled as she told Jackson attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr. that the accuser's mother never told her she had tried to escape from Neverland.

"Why are you smiling?" Mesereau asked.

"It's Neverland," the witness said. "I don't know who would ever want to escape Neverland."

Pryor also testified that she gave the family money and that the accuser's mother and sister tried to pressure her to give them a car. The defense contends that the accuser's mother tried to bilk celebrities by exploiting her son's fight against cancer.

Meanwhile, two sources close to Jackson have told CBS News that the singer's defense team could rest their case as early as next Friday, reports CBS News Correspondent Vince Gonzales.

A Jackson spokeswoman has denied that plan, but his attorneys have told the judge that they've pared down their witness list from the original 250 names.

"I think they are ahead of the game," said CBS News Legal Analyst Mickey Sherman on CBS News' The Early Show. "I think they get a good sense they're doing well, that it's their case to lose."

A source close to the defense says they're eliminating many of the big stars it was thought would come to Santa Maria to speak for Jackson, reports Gonzales. They are concerned that a series of character witnesses would open the door to prosecutors to counter with more witnesses who would trash Jackson.

The defense also fears that celebrities like Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross and Barry Gibb of the Bee-Gees could get the same treatment as Wade Robson, a young man who testified that he shared a bed with Jackson as a boy but nothing ever happened. Prosecutors forced him to go through pornographic magazines and photos of nude boys found in the singer's house.

Gonzales added that sources said that nothing upset Jackson more in the trial than what he saw Robson go through on the stand. It was very humiliating, for both Robson and Jackson.

As for whether Jackson himself will testify, Guthrie said that it's a logical assumption that he won't if they think they can rest as early as next Friday.

"If he were to take the stand, I can guarantee you he'd be on the stand for days," Guthrie said on The Early Show.

"It's a decision they probably still have not made," said Sherman "They'll wait to the last minute."