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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Teen says he told school official that nothing happened


Jackson
 (The Spokesman-Review)
Associated Press

SANTA MARIA, Calif. – The teenage boy who says Michael Jackson molested him acknowledged under cross-examination Monday that he had told an administrator at his school the pop star “didn’t do anything to me” and that Jackson was like a father to him.

Striking at the heart of the prosecution’s allegations of child molestation and conspiracy, defense attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr. confronted the now 15-year-old boy with a video tribute by the boy and his family in which they credited Jackson with changing their lives and helping cure the boy of cancer.

The video already had been shown during the trial twice. This time, Mesereau stopped it repeatedly to ask if the boy and his family were lying. In most instances, the boy said they were speaking the truth.

“Michael was nice to me,” he testified. “I felt like he was a father to me.”

Prosecutors allege Jackson’s associates had the boy’s family make the video after the broadcast of an infamous documentary in which Jackson said he had allowed the boy to sleep in his bed while he slept on the floor. The prosecution claims the rebuttal video was staged and scripted.

Mesereau asked if the family turned on Jackson and invented the allegations because they were being evicted from his Neverland Ranch.

“We realized he wasn’t as nice a guy as we thought he was,” the boy said.

Earlier, the teenager was asked about conversations he had with Jeffrey Alpert, the dean at John Burroughs Middle School in Los Angeles, where the boy had a history of acting up in class.

“I told Dean Alpert he (Jackson) didn’t do anything to me,” the boy said. “I told him twice.”

Prosecutors allege Jackson, 46, plied the boy with alcohol and molested him at his Neverland Ranch in 2003.

The pop star, who was threatened with arrest when he failed to show up in court on time Thursday, arrived on schedule Monday. Unlike last time, when a disheveled Jackson finally arrived in a coat, T-shirt and pajama bottoms, he wore a smart red jacket and black slacks on Monday. His parents escorted him inside.

Mesereau, during his cross-examination, quoted Alpert as telling the youngster: “Look at me, look at me. … I can’t help you unless you tell me the truth – did any of this happen?”

When asked when that conversation had occurred, the boy said: “I believe it was after I came back from Neverland.”

It was not clear in court why the dean had asked the boy about Jackson. However, when the television documentary aired in 2003, the boy was shown in it.