Thomas Mesereau: Closing Arguments of the Defense (Complete Court Transcript)
Mood:  bright
Topic: Main News
Created: Wednesday, 08 June 2005

Mr. Thomas A. Mesereau's Closing Statement

Santa Maria, California
Thursday, June 2, 2005

1 MR. MESEREAU: Thank you.
2 Thank you, Your Honor. Like in the age of
3 computers, right?
4 Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I'd like
5 to begin my closing argument by thanking each and
6 every one of you on behalf of Michael Jackson, his
7 family, and everyone at the defense table for all
8 the time you've spent on this case. It's been a
9 long trial. You've spent many months. You spent a
10 lot of time looking at some testimony that was
11 interesting and some that was not, some that was
12 dull and some that was exciting, but you've had to
13 work very, very hard, and we all appreciate it very
14 much. Thank you very much.
15 Ladies and gentlemen, I just heard a
16 prosecutor get up, start his closing argument with
17 an attack on me. And whenever a prosecutor does
18 that, you know they're in trouble.
19 Now, I can look at you and say, "Mr. Sneddon
20 said that Debbie Rowe would testify that the
21 outtakes were scripted." She did not. She said the
22 opposite.
23 I can tell you that Mr. Sneddon said that
24 Chris Carter would testify to acts at Neverland. He
25 never showed up.
26 I can tell you that Christian Robinson was
27 supposed to come for the prosecution and say things
28 were scripted. He did not. We called him. He
1 said they were not scripted.
2 That's not the point. This is not a
3 popularity contest between lawyers.
4 The issue in this case is the life, the
5 future, the freedom and the reputation of Michael
6 Jackson. That's what's about to be placed in your
7 hands. And the question you have before you is very
8 simple. Do you believe the Arvizos beyond a
9 reasonable doubt, or not?
10 If you don't, Mr. Jackson must go free.
11 I submit, based upon the testimony you've
12 heard, the witnesses you've seen, the issues you've
13 seen addressed, there is no way in the world you can
14 find that the Arvizos are trustworthy beyond a
15 reasonable doubt.
16 And if you can't do that, if anything they
17 said to you, if anything they presented to you
18 causes you to pause and wonder or suspect what
19 really happened, Mr. Jackson must be acquitted under
20 our legal system.
21 You have heard so much testimony about the
22 scams of Mrs. Arvizo. The prosecutor gets up and
23 tries to prop her up, justify her actions, explain
24 her as a nice person, tell you you can trust her,
25 tell you everyone should trust her. And he
26 especially looks at you in the eye and says, "She
27 never asked for money."
28 Well, I have some questions for the jury.
1 When she took her children to The Laugh
2 Factory, placed them on stage, had them do skits and
3 plays about their poverty, about how poor they were,
4 about the part of town they came from in front of
5 George Lopez; when she told George Lopez a story
6 about how her children used to dive for coins in a
7 fountain; when the fund-raisers took place and money
8 was raised, and Janet Arvizo called George Lopez and
9 wanted to give him a gift to thank him, was she
10 asking for money?
11 When Janet Arvizo and Davellin kept hounding
12 Chris Tucker, "When are we getting the truck? When
13 are we getting the truck? When are we getting the
14 truck?" was she asking for money?
15 When Janet Arvizo went to Miss Kennedy, who
16 owned the dance class and said, "You know, we
17 settled the J.C. Penney case. We got some money out
18 of it, but all we ended up with were two bicycles.
19 Please continue to give my children free lessons,"
20 was she asking for money?
21 When Janet Arvizo concocted the J.C. Penney
22 fraud, when her lawyer was shocked, after 25
23 meetings with her, to hear her say at a deposition
24 how she'd been fondled 25 times by J.C. Penney
25 security guards, was she asking for money?
26 When Janet Arvizo had her children call
27 celebrities, constantly hounding celebrities, trying
28 to get money, with her in the background scripting
1 them and coaching them, do you think she was asking
2 for money?
3 When Janet Arvizo went to the editor of the
4 local newspaper in El Monte and said, "We have no
5 insurance. Chemotherapy costs $12,000 per
6 injection. Please put the bank account number in
7 your article. Please do an article. I know it's
8 against your policy to do things like this, but
9 please do it for us, because we can't pay our
10 medical bills," was she asking anyone for money?
11 When the calls went to Jay Leno, repeated
12 messages, "You're my favorite comedian," messages he
13 thought were awfully effusive, sounded scripted,
14 sounded contrived, didn't sound like the appropriate
15 message from a child of that age, when he called the
16 hospital and a woman was in the background telling
17 her son to be effusive, to be wordy, to continue to
18 tell him, "You're my favorite comedian," when he
19 thought they might be asking for money but they
20 actually didn't, what was Janet Arvizo doing?
21 Ask yourself, "Do I have any problem
22 believing what Janet Arvizo says?" Because if you
23 have the slightest problem that's a reasonable one,
24 the slightest doubt that's a reasonable one, the
25 slightest suspicion, Mr. Jackson must go home and he
26 must be free.
27 Now, the list of people she hustled is
28 endless. You know that ten days after the J.C.
1 Penney settlement -- the prosecutor wants you to
2 think she just got $32,000. The fact of the matter
3 is, she put 25,000 in an account for Gavin, she put
4 8,000 in an account for Star, and she set that up so
5 that she can't touch it, which I commend her for.
6 She got much more than $32,000, and yes, she had to
7 pay legal fees and costs, and that's what you
8 normally do when you file a lawsuit and take it to
9 settlement. But when she filed for emergency
10 welfare ten days after getting that money, was she
11 asking for money?
12 In the J.C. Penney case, in her deposition
13 when she admitted that she had filed a state
14 disability claim because she was depressed, and when
15 she was asked, "Why are you depressed?" she said,
16 "Because I'm a nobody," was Janet Arvizo asking for
17 money?
18 When she fraudulently sought food stamps,
19 when she fraudulently sought disability, when she
20 fraudulently sought every state benefit she could
21 get her hands on by perjuring herself and perjuring
22 herself and perjuring herself through constant
23 welfare applications, where she disguised
24 settlements, disguised bank accounts, disguised
25 benefits, was Janet Arvizo seeking money?
26 Because if you think she was, the
27 prosecution falls.
28 Now, ladies and gentlemen, the issue is
1 very, very simple. If you do not believe the
2 Arvizos beyond a reasonable doubt, Michael Jackson
3 must be acquitted. That's the law.
4 And these claims are completely based upon
5 your having to believe the Arvizos every which way
6 but Sunday. You've got to believe them.
7 Now, I submit that the witnesses we have
8 called and the cross-examination we have elicited in
9 this case proves the Arvizos are con artists, actors
10 and liars.
11 What do I mean?
12 Janet Arvizo is a very interesting
13 individual in some ways. Janet Arvizo sometimes
14 directly asks for money. She directly asked her
15 lawyer, Mr. Ranieri, for a contribution. He said
16 no.
17 More often than not, Janet Arvizo does not
18 directly ask for money. But she's so skilled at
19 what she does in articulating her tales of woe, her
20 family's poverty, her abuse, all the problems, that
21 invariably the person she's talking to decides on
22 their own to write her a check.
23 Isn't that what happened to Hamid Moslehi at
24 the home during the rebuttal video? He saw her
25 giving an acting lesson, as she describes it, about
26 her state of affairs. "Everybody abandoned us.
27 DCFS. My husband. Everyone. Nobody would come. I
28 couldn't -- I couldn't feed my children. I had no
1 cereal to give them. We had no money. We had no
2 means of transportation. We couldn't get anywhere."
3 She tells all of this in the rebuttal. Then
4 she has a 25-minute discussion with Hamid, and what
5 does he do? He writes her a $2,000 check.
6 I ask you, was she asking for money?
7 When she was on the phone with Jamie Masada
8 and Jay Jackson -- and she was living with Jay
9 Jackson at the time. He was making $80,000 a year.
10 And Jay Jackson asked if Masada would pay the costs
11 of the karate school with Janet on the phone, do you
12 think she was asking for something?
13 See, Janet Arvizo is much smarter than her
14 ex-husband David. David was like a bull in a china
15 shop. He would just come out and say, "Give us
16 money," or he'd send Gavin out to say, "Give us
17 money."
18 Janet develops a relationship first. She
19 hardly knows you and she's hugging you. She's
20 loving you. She's saying, "You're our family.
21 You're my brother. You're my father. We're all
22 part of your family and you're part of ours."
23 She starts sending letters to Michael
24 Jackson in 2002, when Mr. Zonen told you there was
25 no contact. Every letter, "Daddy Michael, you're
26 our family. We love you. We can't live without
27 you," words to that effect.
28 Janet Arvizo waits and develops a
1 relationship before she looks you in the eye and
2 gives you a tale of woe about why you should give
3 something to her. And it's happened time again,
4 time again, time again.
5 Now, you know that Janet Arvizo wanted her
6 children to be actors. You know that, because they
7 went to various schools to be actors. Every time
8 they went to a school about how to act, she told the
9 teachers how poor they were. You know her children
10 wanted to be actors. They said they wanted to be
11 actors. And you know that she had an almost
12 compulsive addiction to celebrities. I submit it
13 wasn't just about getting money. It was almost a
14 thrill. It was almost an excitement. They called
15 every celebrity in town they could get their hands
16 on. Chris Tucker said, "They made me think I was
17 the only comedian in their life. I later learned
18 they were calling every comedian in Los Angeles."
19 It's a very unusual story. It's hard to believe
20 that it's true when you really step back and look at
21 the MO of the Arvizos. But it is true and we proved
22 it.
23 Now, are they liars? I'm going to show you
24 pages of this transcript from this trial, their
25 testimony to you, and I'm going to show you where
26 they have repeatedly committed perjury in this
27 trial. But that's nothing new. Look at the J.C.
28 Penney lawsuit. How did that suit originate?
1 Eight-year-old Gavin shoplifted, ran into a
2 parking lot and was followed by security guards.
3 David followed, Janet came out from another
4 location, and an altercation developed. Janet and
5 David were arrested.
6 You saw Janet's booking photo at the police
7 department. Not only is there not a bruise on her
8 face, her hair is very neat. It couldn't be neater.
9 She filled out documents, "I have no medical
10 problems. I have no injuries. I don't need
11 attention." She left the jail at approximately
12 twelve o'clock, went to a hospital that evening, and
13 had photos taken within the next couple of weeks at
14 the request of her attorney, and lo and behold, she
15 was bruised, lo and behold she was injured, and lo
16 and behold a lawsuit was filed.
17 Very interesting the way that lawsuit
18 developed, because Janet Arvizo had Gavin testify
19 for her in a sworn deposition at the age of
20 approximately nine or ten. And Janet Arvizo
21 initially did not allege sexual assault. Initially
22 she alleged assault and false imprisonment.
23 As her thoughts about how to get money from
24 J.C. Penney and Tower Records developed, the sexual
25 assault claims developed as well. She amended her
26 complaint, and suddenly, to the surprise of her own
27 lawyer, who couldn't believe what he was hearing at
28 a deposition, she had been fondled 25 times in a
1 parking lot, after security guards did belly flops
2 on top of her, after they spit on her children,
3 after they spit pumpkin seeds at them, after they
4 hit them all with closed fists, after they hit them
5 with handcuffs, after they bruised every part of her
6 body. The claims went through an evolutionary
7 process. They developed and got bigger and bigger
8 and bigger.
9 And she used her son's illness, his cancer,
10 to get damages. She claimed that Star had a cyst on
11 his brain. That was to get damages. Eventually
12 J.C. Penney settled in a fraudulent lawsuit for
13 $152,000.
14 This is a pattern that serves as a looking
15 glass for everything that followed. And I repeat:
16 Ten days after she gets the money, she doesn't just
17 seek welfare under penalty of perjury, she seeks
18 emergency welfare assistance using violence in the
19 home as a reason.
20 Now, I have some graphs we're going to show
21 you that plot out these evolutionary claims, but I
22 have to tell you, it's a pattern and it does not
23 stop, and it's going to right in this courtroom
24 today.
25 You know that Gavin Arvizo, at a very young
26 age, made a false claim of abuse against his mother
27 in the 1990s to the Department of Children & Family
28 Services. He then withdrew the claim. He was very
1 young. He was very street smart. He'd been
2 schooled by his parents, David and Janet.
3 You note in the middle of Janet's spousal
4 abuse case with her ex-husband David, suddenly the
5 claim that David had molested Davellin surfaced.
6 I'm going to show you her testimony in this
7 courtroom. She doesn't remember it. She didn't
8 know it happened. She said she was too young.
9 Janet told her it happened. The slow evolution of a
10 claim of molestation.
11 Just like what happened in this case. And I
12 will chart it out for you, the meetings with
13 lawyers, the meetings with Masada, the development
14 of claims, starting off with claims about, "We don't
15 want to be in the lawsuit in England. We don't --
16 we want our stored materials back," evolving into
17 harassment, evolving into false imprisonment,
18 evolving into molestation. I will chart that out
19 for you in my closing argument.
20 Whenever you see a legal claim from Janet
21 Arvizo or Gavin Arvizo, you have cause to be
22 suspicious. The history is clear. The manipulation
23 is absolute.
24 Janet Arvizo and lawyers.
25 Have any of you tried to count how many
26 lawyers she's seen in her short life? I'll give you
27 some ideas. She said she had a lawyer in her civil
28 divorce action with David and her criminal
1 proceedings with David for all these years named
2 Manning. She had lawyers represent her in the J.C.
3 Penney case against J.C. Penney and Tower Records.
4 She had a criminal defense attorney represent her
5 when they were arrested at J.C. Penney. She went to
6 Bill Dickerman while she allegedly was being falsely
7 imprisoned.
8 And by the way, she first went to Bill
9 Dickerman on the 21st of February, 2003. Two days
10 after that, they were continuing to go after their
11 visas and passports at various federal buildings.
12 And the prosecution tells you she was not trying to
13 develop a lawsuit against Michael Jackson? You have
14 in evidence the visa applications. You have the
15 passport applications. You have documents showing
16 they're going to the Brazilian consulate, they're
17 going to the federal building in Los Angeles. She's
18 already been to Bill Dickerman. What do you think
19 is going on?
20 Bill Dickerman represents her for a period
21 of time and then shuttles her off to Larry Feldman,
22 who is a very well-known attorney in Los Angeles who
23 had represented the Chandlers against Mr. Jackson in
24 1993. Why do you think he sends her to Larry
25 Feldman? Why do you think he has a profit-sharing
26 arrangement with Larry Feldman? Why do you think
27 Mr. Feldman gets ahold of Stanley Katz, a
28 psychologist he used against Mr. Jackson in the
1 early '90s? Why do you think Mr. Masada is bringing
2 her to all these meetings? Doesn't it suggest
3 everybody's looking for a big payday against Michael
4 Jackson? There's only one thing they need. A
5 conviction, by you.
6 There's going to be great celebration in Los
7 Angeles among this group if he is convicted of one
8 single count in this case.
9 You heard Mr. Feldman testify. He spent an
10 enormous amount of money in the early '90s
11 litigating and getting a settlement against Mr.
12 Jackson. He didn't want to do it again. He told
13 the grand jury in Santa Barbara he didn't want to
14 spend that money again. He grudgingly admitted that
15 if Mr. Jackson is convicted in this courtroom, he
16 will not have to spend huge sums of money
17 establishing liability in a civil courtroom. It
18 will be established.
19 Now, he tried to fudge his way around this
20 by suggesting that once liability is established, if
21 you want to prove punitive damages, you still have
22 to prove malice and you still have to go into court.
23 That's true. But isn't liability the big
24 hurdle?
25 Aren't they all after millions from Mr.
26 Jackson? Haven't you seen one witness after another
27 come into this courtroom having sued Mr. Jackson,
28 having tried to get a settlement out of Mr. Jackson?
1 Every one, Ralph Chacon, McManus, Abdool, Cindy
2 Montgomery. They're all lined up.
3 He has a reputation for being a very
4 childlike person, very naive, very idealistic, a
5 musical genius. A person who likes to sit in trees
6 and compose. A person who likes to spend time in
7 the studio. A person who, from an early age, was
8 such a genius at what he did that he attracted
9 millions of dollars before he even knew what it
10 meant. A person who has not managed his money
11 terribly well. Has allowed people to use his
12 signature. Has trusted the wrong people. They've
13 emptied out accounts. They've diverted funds. Mr.
14 LeGrand even had the people around him investigated
15 for stealing from Mr. Jackson, the very people the
16 prosecution claims were his co-conspirators.
17 And he has been a target for years,
18 particularly after he settled with Chandler and
19 Francia, because he doesn't like courtrooms, he
20 doesn't like lawyers particularly, he doesn't like
21 litigation. He's known to be childlike, and
22 different, and creative, and offbeat. He's known
23 not to trust adults.
24 He's known to have developed Neverland as a
25 Disney-like environment to bring inner city children
26 so they can have some fun. He's known to have
27 developed his own lifestyle in a very idealistic and
28 naive kind of way. And he is an unbelievable target
1 because he's attracted millions and millions and
2 millions of dollars through the years because of his
3 genius and his talent and through his hard work.
4 This case is no different.
5 You saw Mr. Robel in that taped interview
6 with Gavin in July, the first interview, before any
7 investigation had ever taken place, he looked at him
8 and he said, "We're going to bring a criminal case.
9 You and your mother are victims. Mr. Jackson is
10 wrong. The people around him are wrong."
11 He hadn't even investigated the case and the
12 train started rolling and nobody would put the
13 brakes on. They didn't know anything about the
14 Arvizos on that date. They didn't want to know.
15 They didn't want to know about welfare fraud and
16 perjury and lying under oath, and J.C. Penney, and
17 hustling celebrities, and bank accounts, putting
18 checks into her mother's account to hide it from
19 welfare and everybody else. Nobody knew about that
20 on this side of the table. The problem is when they
21 began to learn, nobody wanted to say "Stop," and
22 that's why we're here.
23 And I submit, you cannot let injustice
24 happen in this courtroom. You cannot let these
25 people prevail. They're all just ready to pounce
26 with a conviction.
27 I don't have to say much about welfare fraud
28 and perjury. We proved it. The applications prove
1 it. They're all signed under penalty of perjury.
2 They're all manipulative. Not only what's said and
3 what's not said, but what she does. She takes her
4 welfare checks and puts them through Jay Jackson's
5 account, a person in the United States Army making
6 $80,000 a year.
7 She doesn't want a record of where she's
8 depositing them. She doesn't want them to be
9 traced. She lies about settlements. She lies about
10 where she's living. She lies about who's helping
11 support her. She lies to get food stamps. She lies
12 to get disability. Everything she can get her hands
13 on, we have proven is true.
14 And perjury is meaningless to her. She lied
15 in the J.C. Penney depositions. She lied on the
16 applications. Perjury is a habit. And she
17 committed perjury right in this courtroom. We're
18 going to show you some transcripts to show it.
19 I submit, ladies and gentlemen, the biggest
20 red flag in these claims is Janet Arvizo and Gavin
21 Arvizo and Star Arvizo and Davellin Arvizo going to
22 lawyers before they go to the police.
23 The visits to lawyers start on February
24 21st, 2003, when they meet Attorney Bill Dickerman.
25 As I said before, they have more meetings with him.
26 He refers them to Larry Feldman. Feldman brings in
27 Stan Katz. Feldman has a profit-sharing arrangement
28 with Dickerman. They're having all of these
1 meetings, developing their claims, and they don't go
2 to the police until June 13th, 2003, four months
3 later.
4 If you truly believe you've been falsely
5 imprisoned, you've been extorted, your children have
6 been abducted, your children have been molested,
7 they've been plied with alcohol to take advantage of
8 illness, why are you going to all these lawyers
9 first?
10 This is not the first time civil lawyers
11 have tried to manipulate the criminal process to get
12 their work done for them, by the way. Think about
13 it. You don't have to hire experts. You don't have
14 to hire investigation. You don't have to go through
15 months of trial. Because if somebody is convicted
16 and found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, the
17 civil burden of proof, preponderance of the
18 evidence, is already established.
19 They want the taxpayers of this county to
20 establish liability for them. And it's crystal
21 clear that that has been their plan from day one.
22 And I'm asking you not to let it happen.
23 To let it happen, you have to strip Mr.
24 Jackson of his freedom and reputation. You have to
25 label him a convict. You have to label him a sex
26 offender. You have to label him all of the things
27 he is not and they have not proven he is.
28 This is a case, a prosecution, based on the
1 Arvizos' lies and innuendo and exaggerations only.
2 Do any of you really think, from what you've
3 learned about Mr. Jackson, that he would even be
4 capable of running a conspiracy to abduct children,
5 falsely imprison a family, ship them off to Brazil?
6 For what purpose? To make a documentary that they
7 didn't even appear in? For what purpose?
8 I want you to think carefully, ladies and
9 gentlemen, I beg you to think carefully about the
10 dates of the alleged molestation. The charge says
11 the molestations occurred February 20th, 2003,
12 through March 12th, 2003. They claim the
13 molestations begin right after the filming of the
14 rebuttal and the DCFS interview.
15 Now, why do they pick those dates? Because
16 Janet and her family were so laudatory, so effusive
17 about Michael Jackson, praising him every which way
18 they could. "He's a father figure. He's generous.
19 He's caring. He's sensitive. He's always there for
20 them. He helped Gavin with his illness."
21 The dates were carefully chosen to follow
22 those statements. They couldn't get away from those
23 statements. They had to do something about them.
24 But think about this, ladies and gentlemen:
25 How absurd is it to say molestation by Michael
26 Jackson occurred on Gavin Arvizo between February
27 20th and March 12th? What's going on at that point
28 in time? And I will show you a timeline as well.
1 You've got international media scrutiny of
2 Michael Jackson. He's under a microscope, the
3 Arvizos are under a microscope, because of the
4 Bashir documentary. Everyone's talking about it.
5 All sorts of media are buzzing around. They're
6 following the Arvizos. They're trying to follow
7 Michael Jackson. There's ample evidence to suggest
8 that. The Arvizos don't like it. Mr. Jackson, of
9 course, is used to it. He seems to have generated
10 publicity his whole career.
11 But to make a long story short, there is no
12 question you have a media frenzy going on
13 internationally.
14 You have a Department of Children & Family
15 Services investigation going on as well. Mr.
16 Jackson knows it, Janet Arvizo knows it, everyone
17 knows it. Remember the evidence of leaks from DCFS
18 that the prosecution didn't care for? Everyone
19 knows about the investigation.
20 Mr. Geragos is doing his own investigation
21 into the Arvizos because he's concerned about who
22 they are, who they meet with, what their motives
23 are, what they're up to. He told you that he did a
24 quick litigation search. He saw the J.C. Penney
25 suit. It raised some red flags, as it should have
26 for any lawyer pledged to protect a client, and he
27 started his own investigation with Brad Miller, a
28 licensed private investigator. So that's going on.
1 The evidence has shown and proven that the
2 effort to produce a rebuttal show was monumental.
3 You had producers, you had distributors, you had
4 agents, you had lawyers, you had different networks
5 vying to do it. You've already heard about CBS
6 being at Neverland. Janet Arvizo was there on that
7 particular day. Mr. Geragos was there on that
8 particular day. To make a long story short, you
9 have an intense effort to produce this rebuttal that
10 the Arvizos never appeared in and didn't have to
11 appear in.
12 According to the prosecution, this criminal
13 conspiracy is beginning on February 1st, 19 days
14 before the alleged molestation. Put all this
15 together, what does it say to you about the dates
16 the so-called molestation occurred? It's absurd.
17 It's unrealistic. And it makes no sense. Because
18 the whole case makes no sense.
19 You know, these molestation counts and this
20 attempted molestation count, they are completely
21 based on the testimony of Gavin and Star Arvizo.
22 There is no independent witness who allegedly sees
23 any of this. Star changed his story a bunch of
24 times, as I will show you through transcript. But
25 he's the one who says he saw molestation one night,
26 when all the lights were out except the light on the
27 stairwell. The lights in the room were out, he
28 looked for a couple of seconds, and he says he saw
1 Mr. Jackson, lying in bed, touch his brother, who's
2 out like a light. He's asleep. He says he saw that
3 twice.
4 Gavin Arvizo says he was touched a couple of
5 times as well. There is no independent witness to
6 any of this. You have to believe Star beyond a
7 reasonable doubt, you have to believe Gavin beyond a
8 reasonable doubt, and look at the lies they told in
9 court.
10 I am going to go through transcripts of
11 their testimony, but just to whet your appetite a
12 little bit, they are profuse in their testimony that
13 they only had alcohol with Mr. Jackson. And you
14 know Shane Meridith caught them with alcohol. You
15 know Simone caught them with alcohol. You know
16 Angel Vivanco caught them with alcohol. They were
17 profuse in their testimony that they didn't know
18 anything about sexuality till Mr. Jackson showed
19 them a "Hustler"-type magazine. And we know that's
20 false, because they were caught.
21 You know that Gavin looked at you, under
22 oath, and said, "Mr. Jackson told me that if men
23 don't masturbate, they'll go out and rape,"
24 forgetting that he had told the grand jury, "My
25 grandmother told me that."
26 We will go through a transcript as well
27 about these particular witnesses, but you have to
28 understand there's no independent witness allegedly
1 watching any of this. You got to believe them
2 beyond a reasonable doubt. You got to believe them
3 all the way. It's impossible.
4 The prosecution doesn't like to focus on the
5 fact there is no forensic evidence supporting any of
6 these alleged molestation claims. No DNA supports
7 it. There's no semen stain or sample that supports
8 it. No evidence of bodily fluids support it that
9 you can link to Gavin. No hair, no fibers. They
10 didn't fingerprint the bottles or any of the area
11 where he's supposed to have been molested. No
12 forensic evidence. No independent witness to any of
13 this.
14 Conspiracy.
15 They have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt
16 that Michael Jackson had a specific intent to enter
17 into an agreement to falsely imprison, abduct
18 children and extort.
19 There is no evidence that he did anything
20 like that whatsoever. They don't put him at
21 meetings. They don't record his phone calls. They
22 don't have anything that suggests he wanted to enter
23 into a felony conspiracy to commit these crimes on a
24 family. They have to prove that he wanted to abduct
25 these children to Brazil, I guess.
26 How absurd is that? No plane tickets were
27 ever purchased for the trip to Brazil. When they
28 didn't want to go to Brazil, they went home. And
1 they went home when they realized Michael Jackson
2 was not going to Brazil, because Janet was playing
3 all sides, like so many other people around Michael
4 Jackson. She wanted to be part of Michael Jackson's
5 world. She wanted to benefit from the financial,
6 the celebrity, the public relations advantages she
7 had with Michael Jackson.
8 And everybody's playing everybody to see if
9 they can gain advantage and be with Michael Jackson.
10 It's been the story of his life. It's why his
11 finances have had problems despite all these
12 millions generated.
13 The Arvizos were no different. Once she
14 found the most popular celebrity in the world, who
15 happened to be that childlike and that naive, who,
16 unlike Jay Leno, didn't see the signs, unlike Chris
17 Tucker, who eventually saw the signs, unlike others
18 that got taken and disappeared, Michael brought this
19 family into Neverland and took care of them.
20 Can you imagine, based upon what you've seen
21 in this courtroom, Michael Jackson conspiring to
22 abduct children, falsely imprison or commit
23 extortion? Does he look like the kind of person who
24 would do that? You saw a tape. He wants to have
25 celebrity animal parties. He wants an international
26 day for children. He likes to sit in a tree and do
27 music. He says, "Other people go to baseball games
28 and football games. I like to sit in my tree." He
1 likes to create. He lets children visit Neverland
2 who are ill and sick.
3 Does he look like the kind of person who is
4 even capable of masterminding a criminal conspiracy
5 of this magnitude? It's absurd.
6 And to even consider it, you have to believe
7 Janet Arvizo beyond a reasonable doubt that she
8 escaped from Neverland, went back, escaped from
9 Neverland, went back, escaped from Neverland, went
10 back.
11 It's absurd on its face. And, ladies and
12 gentlemen, you have to shake your head to think they
13 would even bring a claim like that against Mr.
14 Jackson, who, by the way, is the only person charged
15 with it.
16 Have one of these other alleged
17 co-conspirators even been charged with a
18 misdemeanor? No. No. It was done to keep them
19 away from this courtroom, scare them.
20 If you really think there was a conspiracy
21 of this magnitude, if you really think the actions
22 were this serious, if you really think a family was
23 being abducted and hidden and spirited away to their
24 doom, why do you only charge Michael Jackson?
25 Because he's a mega celebrity and that's
26 what this case is about. Seventy officers search
27 his home. They don't do that in homicide cases.
28 Seventy officers invade his privacy.
1 Yes, he's a human being. They find a lot of
2 girlie magazines; "Hustler," "Playboy," "Penthouse."
3 He does read them. Did he want the world to know
4 that? No, that's his private life. Did he think
5 they were going to bring it all into a courtroom and
6 just flash it for the world? No.
7 They went all around his house trying to
8 find something. And I'm going to tell you in a
9 little while what they didn't find. But let me just
10 go through this general outline first.
11 There is no incriminating statement by Mr.
12 Jackson of any kind that, "I want these people
13 spirited to Brazil. I want them held against their
14 will. I want these children abducted, separate them
15 from their mother"; nothing. In fact, throughout
16 all of this elaborate evidence of a conspiracy, you
17 hardly hear of him. He's not at meetings. He
18 doesn't have a cell phone. They can do all this,
19 you know, fancy arrows going every which way but
20 Sunday, but where is Michael Jackson in the middle
21 of this?
22 In fact, the evidence is that Janet
23 complained to Azja Pryor and others, including Maria
24 Gomez, that "These people are separating me from
25 Michael Jackson." She felt she was a victim of
26 their efforts to monopolize Michael Jackson and keep
27 her away. And indeed, Mr. LeGrand did testify
28 Dieter and Konitzer were intending to take over all
1 of his affairs, all of his business matters, and
2 Dieter and Konitzer didn't want Michael Jackson
3 involved in their discussions.
4 What significant events in this so-called
5 conspiracy is he even at? Where is he? You don't
6 know where he is. You don't hear from him. He's at
7 Neverland. He's in his studio. He's traveling.
8 Where is he when this so-called conspiracy is being
9 hatched and operated?
10 Janet's statements refute this whole idea of
11 a conspiracy. Her actions refute the idea of a
12 conspiracy, as you heard me say ad nauseam in my
13 examination of witnesses: "Did you call the police?
14 Did you call the police? Did you call the police."
15 No.
16 The conspiracy's happening at Jay Jackson's
17 apartment, a major in the U.S. Army. That's where
18 the interviews with Brad Miller take place. That's
19 where the Department of Children & Family Services
20 interview take place. What kind of a conspiracy is
21 going to want to meet at Jay Jackson's apartment?
22 What kind of a conspiracy goes on with all
23 of these hotels, and all of these shopping sprees
24 and all of this stuff in full view? What kind of
25 conspiracy goes on when you've got a licensed,
26 bonded mover to move her stuff into storage and put
27 it in Brad Miller's name?
28 This is not a conspiracy. There's no
1 conspiracy at all involving Mr. Jackson.
2 Now, what some of these other guys may have
3 done on occasion is unclear, because they weren't in
4 the courtroom and Mr. Jackson wasn't with them.
5 They're all trying to make a buck off of him, that's
6 clear. They're all angling for advantage. That's
7 clear. The testimony that Schaffel was trying to
8 make a buck off Mr. Jackson is clear. The testimony
9 that Konitzer and Dieter wanted to take over his
10 affairs is clear.
11 Where is Mr. Jackson in this conspiracy?
12 You can put him in the center of a nice
13 photograph and you can have all these faces around
14 him, but that's not evidence. That's a substitute
15 for evidence.
16 Now, Mr. Jackson got himself in trouble by
17 very innocently and naively telling Bashir, "I have
18 allowed children into my bed. I have allowed
19 children into my room. What do you do with a child
20 that has no parents? What do you do? Children
21 flock to me all over the world. I'm a childlike
22 figure. And I see nothing wrong with it because
23 nothing sexual happens. And the world needs more
24 love, and children need more caring, and this is,
25 like, kids are bringing guns to schools."
26 Idealistic, naive, in light of the target he
27 is, but not criminal in nature. And if he really
28 were out to commit crimes, why would he go on an
1 international documentary and make these statements?
2 Because he hasn't been committing crimes.
3 But he has naively and idealistically and in
4 a childlike way let people run roughshod through his
5 home, let them sleep in his bedroom. He has opened
6 his gates to all kinds of people. And it's a naive
7 way to look at the world because he is such a
8 target. He is.
9 Say to yourself, why would he say these
10 things to Bashir if he were a criminal? Why?
11 Because he's not.
12 Now, because their case is so weak, because
13 of their concern that you're not going to believe
14 the Arvizos beyond a reasonable doubt, this
15 prosecution has engaged in a mean-spirited, nasty
16 attempt, a barbaric attempt to dehumanize and
17 degrade Mr. Jackson. It started during jury
18 selection when Mr. Zonen talked about his sagging
19 music career. It continued as they flashed
20 magazines to you throughout the trial. It continued
21 with efforts to show you his finances to show he's
22 had some financial problems through mismanagement
23 and misguided motives.
24 And what am I talking about?
25 The guy's millions in debt and he gives a
26 million dollars to Marlon Brando because he feels
27 bad about his friend. He pays for everybody.
28 Shopping sprees, hotels. He has all these sharks
1 around him getting power of attorney so they can
2 sign documents for him. His generosity, his lax
3 behavior knows no bounds because the man has a
4 wonderful, kind heart.
5 But they do it thinking somehow he'll be
6 embarrassed, or they'll embarrass him by this
7 preposterous claim that because Mr. Jackson had some
8 financial difficulties with cash flow, that he would
9 want to abduct a family to do a broadcast that
10 didn't even include them, a broadcast that generated
11 money that isn't even close to fulfilling the debt
12 obligations that they tried to establish.
13 They didn't really do it because they think
14 you're going to buy that it's a motive for a
15 conspiracy. They did it to embarrass him and
16 dehumanize him in your eyes because they're worried
17 you just might like Michael Jackson. You just might
18 admire Michael Jackson. You just might have pity
19 for Mr. Jackson for being treated the way they've
20 treated him and for being the target of Mr.
21 Sneddon's actions for many years.
22 They're worried, and the only way they can
23 handle it is through dirt everywhere. To take
24 everything he has tried to build and create and
25 accomplish and try and degrade it and dehumanize it,
26 and I submit it's wrong.
27 And I submit it's no substitute for
28 evidence. It is absolute misconduct by them.
1 He's not charged with possessing any illegal
2 pornography, because no illegal pornography was
3 found. Everything they found in his home was
4 lawful. That was clear. He's not charged with
5 showing adult material to children. That's not one
6 of the charges here. They're doing that to dirty
7 him up, and try to get you to somehow make it easier
8 for you to convict him.
9 He's not charged with lax supervision. How
10 many times in this trial have we heard that kids get
11 all the candy they want, all the ice cream they
12 want; that kids can run around Neverland and have
13 fun with the animals; that they're not supervised
14 well enough; that the doors are open; that they run
15 in and out of his room, in and out of his house?
16 How often have we heard that? That they can jump on
17 ATVs and drive everywhere.
18 They tried to make it look like a crime.
19 He's not charged with lax supervision. Kiki
20 Fournier said he's too nice to people. He lets
21 people into his house too often. He lets them run
22 around.
23 And of course you know the Arvizo kids, what
24 they were doing, in and out of everything, like they
25 were at every house they were able to get into.
26 The prosecutor mentioned Dr. Esplin, our
27 expert. Dr. Esplin said most false claims of
28 molestation come from children ten and up and
1 usually the motive is financial gain. And he talked
2 specifically about a long history of deceptive
3 behavior by the parents.
4 Could you have parents with more of a
5 pattern of deceptive behavior than David and Janet?
6 The prosecution did us a favor. They
7 focused on David, how he just hustled Mr. Lopez for
8 money, and irritated people at The Laugh Factory,
9 and irritated people at the hospital, and kept
10 trying to get money, and concocted this scheme with
11 Gavin, his young son, about George Lopez stealing
12 money from a wallet.
13 They painted him as the bad guy, not
14 realizing that there was no way in the world they
15 were going to make Janet look good. And what they
16 did was they added all the pieces to the puzzle.
17 This is a family where children have been
18 taught to con, and children have been taught to lie,
19 and children have been taught to very brashly and
20 brazenly, and with no embarrassment or any type of
21 restraint, call one celebrity after another, and
22 keep bombarding them with calls, like they did to
23 Jay Leno, like they did to Chris Tucker, like they
24 did to Michael Jackson. This is the way they've
25 been taught.
26 It doesn't mean they're irredeemable. It
27 doesn't mean they don't have some good qualities.
28 Azja Pryor, a very nice person, fell in love with
1 the kids. But she wasn't street smart like Mr.
2 Leno. She didn't see what was coming until
3 eventually they hounded her for a truck, hounded her
4 for money. Janet told her her tale of woe and she
5 gave her 600 bucks, and the pattern continued.
6 The prosecutor mentioned Stanley Katz. He
7 quoted Stanley Katz, Larry Feldman's good friend,
8 who he hired in '93 to go after Mr. Jackson, who he
9 brought into this case to take the same type of
10 approach with the Arvizos.
11 Do you remember Stanley Katz, a psychologist
12 with the Ph.D., looked at you and said, "I've never
13 heard of a false claim by a teenager"? Remember he
14 said that? Remember he said that? Did anyone on
15 this jury believe that?
16 Of course you didn't. It was self-serving,
17 it was manipulative and it was dishonest.
18 Dr. Esplin is the leading authority on false
19 claims. He's done studies with law enforcement all
20 around the world. He told you children ten and up
21 are the biggest group for making false claims like
22 this. And if you see a pattern and a history of bad
23 behavior by parents, it raises a red flag.
24 Could you ever have imagined more of a
25 history than what you've seen here?
26 I want to clarify some of the issues in the
27 case, ladies and gentlemen, because I really believe
28 the prosecution, with their scattered claims of too
1 much candy and too much girlie magazines and too
2 much ice cream, and here, there and everywhere, are
3 muddying the waters so you will not focus on what
4 the real claim is.
5 First of all, the only alleged victim of
6 child molestation in this case is Gavin Arvizo. The
7 counts only relate to Gavin Arvizo. They brought in
8 alleged victims from the '90s - three of them came
9 in and said nothing happened - because they're
10 desperate. They are absolutely desperate. The only
11 claims here relate to Gavin. If you don't believe
12 Gavin and Star beyond a reasonable doubt, acquittal
13 is necessary.
14 As I said before, they're the only witnesses
15 to the molestation counts. Nobody else. I told you
16 they repeatedly lied under oath and I told you
17 there's no independent witnesses to support their
18 claims.
19 What are you left with? What are you left
20 with? What kind of a system do we have if these
21 kinds of witnesses can convict someone and destroy
22 their life, with all you know about them at this
23 point.
24 I talked about there not being forensic
25 evidence. There's none.
26 You know that he went to his teacher and was
27 questioned twice. "Did Mr. Jackson ever molest
28 you?" And the answer was, "No."
1 And that's when the prosecution started to
2 backpedal. "Well, we have evidence that people
3 delay reporting, and we have evidence that young men
4 get embarrassed about being sexually handled in a
5 way like this."
6 Some of that may be true, but how do you
7 know it's true here? How do you know it's true
8 here?
9 And if the prosecution has the burden to
10 prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt, how can they
11 come to you and respond to the fact that he told
12 this teacher on two occasions, "Mr. Jackson never
13 touched me," by saying, "Well, studies show that
14 sometimes people delay their reports"?
15 Is that proof beyond a reasonable doubt or
16 is it just a wishy-washy type of explanation for
17 something they know is devastating to their case
18 because the problems continue: The lack of
19 forensics, the lack of an independent witness, the
20 lies under oath, the history of the family. Now you
21 got a witness who Gavin Arvizo said it never
22 happened to.
23 And as I said before, he's the only alleged
24 victim in the case.
25 As I said before, he made a false claim
26 about his mother abusing him in the '90s. He made
27 false claims as a child in the J.C. Penney case
28 where he was deposed under oath. He supported his
1 mother in everything she wanted to do.
2 I'm going to go through their transcripts,
3 their testimony, and show you where Gavin and Star
4 kept changing their stories, kept telling lies. And
5 as I said before, the timing is outrageous that
6 molestation is going to occur starting February
7 20th.
8 THE COURT: Is this a good place for a break?
9 MR. MESEREAU: Yes, sir.
10 (Recess taken.)
11 THE COURT: Counsel?
12 MR. MESEREAU: Thank you, Your Honor.
13 Ladies and gentlemen, the prosecution would
14 like the defense to focus only on Janet Arvizo.
15 That is their dream. Their dream is that we will
16 focus on her and somehow the children will look
17 clean and honest and truthful. And I want to make
18 sure that's not what our thrust is.
19 You may recall that Gavin Arvizo met Chris
20 Tucker at his home and lied. He told him, "We made
21 no money at the fund-raiser," and that's when Chris
22 Tucker wrote a check. Chris Tucker described him as
23 cunning, smart. He didn't trust him.
24 Even at a young age, Star Arvizo told Louise
25 Palanker, "All we got was love for Christmas," and
26 she began to write the $10,000 checks.
27 Davellin kept hassling Azja Pryor for Chris
28 Tucker's truck. It was relentless. She finally had
1 to stop talking to Davellin, and she actually liked
2 Davellin.
3 I don't want to suggest, in any shape or
4 form, this is just a target of Janet. The whole
5 family has difficulties with the truth, difficulties
6 with honesty, difficulties with money, and the
7 children have been raised this way.
8 Now, I want to make a couple of things clear
9 that I talked about earlier.
10 In the J.C. Penney fraud, which Gavin was
11 very much a part of at a young age, Janet was
12 arrested and got out of jail at 9:15. David got out
13 of jail at 12:03. Janet checked into the ER at 1:11
14 that day claiming she'd be injured.
15 The family has been part of these fraud
16 scams, not someone alone.
17 When David was in the picture and
18 manipulating celebrities, he used Gavin.
19 Do you remember George Lopez said, "We'd go
20 to a mall, and David would be standing there, and
21 Gavin would be asking me to buy all these things.
22 And I thought it was strange that the father would
23 simply stand there, not say anything, and let his
24 child just keep asking me to buy and buy and buy."
25 But that's the way it's worked. Mrs. Watson
26 Johnson said that Star would call her asking for
27 money and she could hear Janet in the background
28 coaching him.
1 Mary Holzer said that Janet bragged to her
2 that her kids were good actors, that Gavin knew his
3 lines well, but Star used to falter. He wasn't
4 quite as smart, wasn't quite up to it.
5 Could you believe how many witnesses came in
6 to establish this MO of scamming and manipulating
7 and lying? Can you believe that many people would
8 come in to testify that this family has gotten in a
9 rhythm, a pattern of going after celebrities?
10 Because it's worked and worked and worked. It's a
11 family program. It's not just Janet's problems.
12 Now, ladies and gentlemen, the prosecution
13 has tried to focus your attention on what they now
14 call pornography at Neverland. And they found for
15 the last ten years' worth of "Hustler," "Playboy,"
16 "Penthouse," things of that sort. All legal. All
17 heterosexual.
18 In a library of thousands and thousands of
19 books, they found a couple of books that focused on
20 men. And they wanted you to think that somehow Mr.
21 Jackson was some -- I don't know whether they're
22 trying to say he's a gay man, or, as Mr. Zonen in
23 his mean questioning, try to suggest he's asexual.
24 They're not sure which way they're going. But
25 basically they went through this home where
26 thousands and thousands of books have accumulated,
27 where the evidence was, that when fans around the
28 world sent things to Mr. Jackson, he keeps
1 everything like a pack rat.
2 And what do they find? They found this
3 book, "Boys Will Be Boys" - okay? - published in New
4 York in 1966. Yes, it has some naked pictures of
5 boys. It also has pictures that are not naked,
6 okay?
7 And what does it say, what is inscribed in
8 the book? It says, "Look at the true spirit of
9 happiness and joy in these boys' faces. This is the
10 spirit of boyhood, a life I never had and will
11 always dream of. This is the life I want for my
12 children, MJ."
13 Now, you've already seen the outtakes where
14 Mr. Jackson talks about his not having a childhood.
15 He was working clubs at a young age at 3:00 in the
16 morning --
17 MR. ZONEN: Your Honor, I'll object to this
18 matter as exceeding the scope of the Court ruling.
19 MR. MESEREAU: Your Honor, the prosecution
20 talked similarly about Bashir.
21 MR. ZONEN: It's the outtakes.
22 THE COURT: The objection is sustained on
23 that.
24 MR. MESEREAU: Is this the sign of a
25 pedophile? To write an inscription in a published
26 book of this sort?
27 The other book, "The Boy: A Photographic
28 Essay," says, "To Michael: From your fan, Rhonda,"
1 with a little heart. "1983, Chicago," it says in
2 it.
3 Now, Mr. Zonen didn't know what to do with
4 that so he suggested through his questioning on
5 cross-examination that maybe somebody had faked it.
6 But there's no evidence anybody faked that. They
7 seized these things in the early '90s.
8 And was there any evidence that these books
9 were ever shown to any witness? No. Not one
10 witness came into this courtroom and said, "Michael
11 Jackson showed me books of men." Not one.
12 Now, we're asking you to use your common
13 sense in this area of alleged pedophilia.
14 First of all, they never put a pedophilia
15 expert on the stand, because they were afraid.
16 Having all of these heterosexual books and magazines
17 doesn't add up to pedophilia, okay?
18 What do you typically find? You find
19 illegal child pornography, websites galore,
20 pictures. None of that came in. And, yes, the
21 prosecution suggested they would prove that, and
22 none of it was found at Neverland. No websites of
23 pedophilia. No child sex pictures on websites. No
24 photographs. None of the things you typically
25 associate with a pedophile.
26 And their biggest problem is repeated
27 editions of "Hustler" and "Playboy" and "Penthouse"
28 and "Barely Legal" do not equate with what they're
1 trying to prove. I'm not saying it's necessarily
2 commendable that you have all these magazines, but
3 you can get them at any newsstand and there's been
4 no evidence that anything was illegal.
5 And if Mr. Jackson has been proven to like
6 to read these magazines for years and years and
7 years, how does that equate to their theory that he
8 wanted to sexually touch a male child?
9 It doesn't. There's a problem with their
10 case. And as I said before, not one of these books
11 they found, among thousands, of males was shown to a
12 single witness. No illegal child pornography,
13 either in a website or anywhere else. No websites
14 where you try to meet children, like pedophiles
15 often do, and the rest.
16 This is nothing but a mean-spirited attempt
17 to damage his reputation and embarrass him by
18 digging into his private life through repeated
19 searches, with 70 officers, trying to find something
20 to dirty him up with.
21 They have dirtied him up, because he's
22 human. But they haven't proved their case. They
23 can't.
24 Now, you know that Gavin and Star tried to
25 act like they're very naive on sexual matters.
26 Do you remember that last police interview
27 which they showed you so you would understand
28 Gavin's demeanor? Well, you can certainly study his
1 demeanor in conjunction with what's said, because
2 they played for you what was said. It wasn't
3 offered for the truth. The tape was offered to show
4 his demeanor, but you can consider his demeanor in
5 terms of what is said.
6 Do you remember, after Mr. Robel said,
7 "We're going to bring a criminal case against Mr.
8 Jackson, and you're the victims, you and your mom,"
9 before they'd even investigated? Do you remember he
10 started off by looking at Gavin and saying, "Tell me
11 something that's wrong. Give me an example of
12 something that's wrong."
13 And Gavin hesitated. And you study his
14 demeanor. He's sort of stymied. He doesn't quite
15 know what to say. He comes up with, "Staying out
16 late at night."
17 MR. ZONEN: I'll object to the content as
18 exceeding the scope of the court ruling.
19 THE COURT: Overruled.
20 MR. MESEREAU: And then they ask him, "Come
21 up with something else."
22 And he hesitates. He has this guilty look
23 on his face. He doesn't know what to say. He says,
24 "Break things."
25 And then Mr. Robel says, "How about
26 something else?"
27 He hesitates. He looks stymied. He looks
28 confused, and he says, "Kill somebody."
1 Did he ever say lie, cheat, or steal? Do
2 most children his age, if you ask them, "Give me an
3 example of something that's wrong," say, "Don't lie;
4 don't tell the truth"?
5 No. And if you have time in the jury room,
6 just take a look at the beginning of that interview.
7 By the way, that's the same interview where
8 his mother's outside the door, and he says, "I
9 haven't told my mother any of this," after they met
10 for months with lawyers, okay?
11 That's the same interview where you can
12 study his demeanor as he lies about wanting to leave
13 Neverland because he was scared.
14 Didn't he testify to you that he loved
15 Neverland, wanted to be there? Didn't he tell
16 various witnesses he loved Neverland, wanted to be
17 there?
18 Study his demeanor. That's why they asked
19 you to look at it. Study it. And study this sort
20 of fake notion that he's unsophisticated in sexual
21 matters. He acts like he doesn't know what an
22 erection is.
23 He's 13. His brother's been caught with
24 girlie magazines at Neverland. He acts like he
25 doesn't know what an ejaculation is. He acts so
26 innocent.
27 They've been meeting with Feldman and
28 Dickerman and Masada and Katz for months. He's been
1 talking to his mother about this stuff for months.
2 Do you believe for a second they went to Feldman
3 without thinking there was some type of molestation
4 they could pull off? Why else do you go to Feldman?
5 Why else? Do you really believe his mother was
6 outside the door and they never talked about it?
7 Study his demeanor. You don't see much
8 emotion.
9 You know, one of the most important moments
10 in this trial was, I submit that when you get in the
11 jury room, discuss this occurrence: He's on the
12 witness stand. He describes the alleged sexual
13 touching, the alleged molestation. You saw no
14 emotion whatsoever.
15 When did you see him really get mad? When
16 he talked about Michael Jackson abandoning his
17 family.
18 Do you remember? Do you remember the
19 emotion, the anger? Do you remember how he reacted?
20 You can't look at a transcript and see it. You have
21 to see it in person. He was angry because he felt
22 that Michael Jackson had abandoned his family. They
23 were not part of his world. And he wanted to be
24 part of his world. That was clear.
25 No emotion about the alleged touching.
26 Plenty of emotion about, "Why did Michael do that to
27 us?"
28 That happened on cross-examination. And
1 that sums up this case when it comes to Gavin Arvizo.
2 Put all of this together, what do you get?
3 The Arvizos, Gavin and Star, tried to suggest that
4 Michael Jackson corrupted them with these magazines.
5 Yet Star was caught twice with his own magazines.
6 Julio Avila caught him with a magazine in his
7 backpack. He said, "I got it at home," when he was
8 caught writing "Suck dick" on the wall.
9 That is not a naive kid on sexual matters,
10 but they'd like you to think it was all Michael
11 Jackson taking these innocent little lambs and
12 corrupting their minds. And it's baloney.
13 They tried to tell you that Michael Jackson
14 taught them masturbation and taught them the facts
15 of life and, again, they were just these innocent
16 little kids. But they were caught masturbating by
17 Rijo, who took the stand and was as honest as can be
18 and thoroughly abused by Mr. Zonen. Do you remember
19 he started to wipe his eyes he was so scared about
20 this whole event?
21 Gavin and Star are not what they're trying
22 to make you think they are.
23 I've already talked about the financial
24 motive. It's clear as day. You don't keep going to
25 all these lawyers and changing your claims unless
26 you have a financial motive.
27 Demeanor? Well, in that police interview
28 that they ended their case with, do you remember
1 Gavin begins with, "How long is this going to take?"
2 Do you remember that?
3 You've got a police officer stroking him
4 along, "You're the victim. You're the victim.
5 We're going after Michael Jackson. We're going
6 after his people. We're on your side. Don't be
7 afraid," encouraging him to make these accusations
8 that conflict with things that he said to the police
9 on other occasions.
10 He didn't show emotion. Remember, he's
11 trained as an actor. His mother's proud of it.
12 He's proud of it.
13 Does it complicate your job?
14 Yes. But you have to deal with the facts.
15 Does it make it harder to believe him beyond
16 a reasonable doubt?
17 It does. But the facts are the facts are
18 the facts.
19 These are the same kids that were dancing on
20 the stage at The Laugh Factory about their poverty
21 so celebrities would feel sorry for them.
22 Now, as I said before, we're going to get
23 into some transcript, because transcripts don't lie.
24 I want to show you what they said in this courtroom
25 so the prosecution can't get up and just
26 misinterpret what they said or did.
27 Let me cover a few more points first.
28 The alcohol counts. I want to be clear on
1 what you're being asked to do. The felony alcohol
2 counts require proof beyond a reasonable doubt that
3 alcohol was given to molest Gavin Arvizo. He's the
4 only alleged victim of those counts.
5 What they're saying is Michael Jackson, with
6 all you know about him through this trial, would
7 look at a cancer patient, a child, and say, "Ah-hah,
8 I'm going to ply him with alcohol so I can disable
9 him and molest him."
10 Michael Jackson couldn't even conceive of
11 such a thing. He couldn't.
12 The same problems with the molestation
13 counts exist for the felony alcohol counts, because
14 it's allegedly giving alcohol for the purpose of
15 molesting.
16 Now, Judge Melville read you the jury
17 instructions yesterday, and there is the option of a
18 misdemeanor count on alcohol. It's called a
19 lesser-included. But it still requires that you
20 believe Gavin Arvizo beyond a reasonable doubt,
21 okay? And it still requires that the time period
22 for the alleged molestation be the time period for
23 that misdemeanor count.
24 And you can't believe Gavin Arvizo on
25 alcohol beyond a reasonable doubt. Why?
26 He and Star claim they only drank with
27 Michael Jackson. Remember that? They repeatedly
28 say that under oath. Shane Meridith caught the two
1 of them in the wine cellar with a half-empty bottle
2 of wine. Michael Jackson was nowhere around. So
3 they lied under oath.
4 Rijo Jackson. He says he was in Michael
5 Jackson's bedroom. Michael Jackson was in the
6 bathroom. A glass and a bottle of alcohol was
7 brought in while Michael Jackson was in the
8 bathroom. Gavin and Star ran upstairs and then ran
9 out of the room, and after they'd run out of the
10 room alcohol was missing from the bottle.
11 Now, I ask you this: If Michael was so
12 freely giving them alcohol, why did they have to run
13 out of the room behind his back? Why?
14 Simone Jackson was in the kitchen area. Saw
15 them come in and go to the refrigerator and take
16 alcohol. They didn't see her.
17 Michael Jackson was nowhere near where they
18 were that night. They've lied under oath about
19 alcohol.
20 Angel Vivanco. He says that Star told him,
21 "You either put this liqueur in my milkshake or I'll
22 get you fired." Michael Jackson isn't there.
23 Now, the alcohol allegations don't relate to
24 the air flight, okay? That's not the time period.
25 As I said before, the time period for the alcohol
26 allegations is the same time period for the
27 molestation allegations, which allegedly start
28 February 20th, and I've talked to you about how
1 weird that is and how ridiculous it is.
2 But the Arvizos came up with this story on
3 the plane about drinking alcohol, but Cynthia Bell
4 saw none of this. And she didn't have credibility
5 problems. They did.
6 Michael Jackson wanted alcohol in cans so
7 kids couldn't see it, because he does drink alcohol
8 on occasion and he doesn't like to advertise it. Of
9 course, with this investigation, his personal life
10 has been turned topsy-turvy, and they're trying to
11 make a criminal out of him because he gets
12 intoxicated from time to time.
13 You have to look at this with a human lens.
14 You have to look at him as a human being. He's been
15 put under this microscope his whole life as this
16 megastar. Some say he's better known than Elvis
17 around the world, but that has a price attached to
18 it. And the price sometimes is loneliness and
19 confusion and not knowing who your friends even are.
20 And he is a human being, but he's not a criminal.
21 Jesus Salas. They thought he was going to
22 be their star witness on alcohol. They put him on
23 the stand. He said he came into Michael's room with
24 wine, glasses and soda.
25 They got upset that he mentioned soda. He
26 said, "You never asked me about it before."
27 Now, if Michael Jackson is giving alcohol to
28 the Arvizos, then why is he coming into his room
1 with soda cans for them? Why?
2 When the Arvizos testified that they only
3 had alcohol with Michael Jackson, they lied, and
4 they lied and they lied. You cannot believe them
5 beyond a reasonable doubt. You cannot convict on
6 those counts.
7 I just want to refer you to the end of this.
8 Some of this is a little repetitive, but he's not
9 charged with negligent or lax supervision. That's
10 not a crime. It's not in this case. If they were
11 running wild around Neverland because their parents
12 let them do it or Michael let them do it, if they
13 get ahold of the key, if they did kitchen raids, as
14 they testified to, in the house and grabbed alcohol
15 from the refrigerator, that's not a crime he's
16 charged with.
17 He's not charged with being negligent, okay?
18 They've got to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that
19 he intended to furnish stuff to these kids.
20 I want to refer you to the third one,
21 because, you know, in their efforts to say there's a
22 conspiracy by Michael Jackson to abduct children,
23 extort, falsely imprison, that because he was having
24 a cash flow problem, despite the millions he makes
25 every year, that he was going to engage in this scam
26 to whisk this family off to Brazil, I'd like to
27 refer you to the third item.
28 Ladies and gentlemen, turn on the television
1 any night of the week. Don't celebrities have
2 public relations problems? Don't celebrities get
3 arrested, get charged, get videotaped in
4 compromising positions, get audiotaped, get
5 photographed? Don't people who've known them with
6 an axe to grind come forward and tell stories? When
7 they have public relations problems, they deal with
8 them.
9 The public relations problems associated
10 with Bashir were dealt with. You had a Maury Povich
11 documentary to deal with it. It was a successful
12 documentary. All of these various factors came
13 together to produce it on the 20th. This is the way
14 celebrities deal with PR problems. They're always
15 faced with them, and their public relations
16 spokespeople always tell them, "This is a crisis.
17 This is the biggest problem of your life. We'll
18 deal with it. Here's how we deal with it."
19 The idea that the Bashir documentary was
20 such a public relations problem that he would commit
21 felonies like this is ridiculous. Is ridiculous.
22 Now, if some of the people around them are
23 excessive -- I don't know if they were or not. I
24 mean, they brought in evidence there was a rock
25 thrown at the Arvizo house. I mean, Michael Jackson
26 is nowhere near that if it happened.
27 They brought in testimony that the Germans,
28 so to speak, were mean to Janet, although Angel
1 Vivanco says she was having champagne with Dieter,
2 and they appeared to be getting along the first time
3 and the next time they weren't.
4 If anybody acted excessively, Michael
5 Jackson didn't. He's nowhere to be seen. And he
6 had no intention and would never deal with a PR
7 crisis -- it wasn't the first PR crisis in his
8 career, by the way. He's been under a microscope, a
9 looking glass, since he was a child. He doesn't
10 engage in a conspiracy to kidnap a family to Brazil.
11 The response was the documentary, which was
12 successful.
13 Okay. Now -- okay. All right.
14 You know, and I will show you Janet's
15 transcripts, you know, that she knew a lot of police
16 officers. Do you remember I asked her all these
17 questions about Andrew Lassak, a police officer that
18 she knew, police officers from the MTA, the
19 Metropolitan Transportation Authority, that she
20 knew, and she was gladly describing how the police
21 station was constructed? I'll show you the
22 transcript.
23 And Lassak was in touch with them. She had
24 his cell phone number. She knew other police in the
25 area and never went to any of them and said, "We're
26 in trouble. We're being falsely imprisoned. We're
27 being held against our will. We're victims."
28 Nothing of this.
1 She told Azja Pryor she was hoping to go to
2 Brazil and she hoped Azja would come with her.
3 Now, you know that David LeGrand was
4 concerned that Dieter and Konitzer and Schaffel, he
5 even investigated Vinnie and Frank, who were like
6 really young kids, he was concerned they were all
7 engaged in self-dealing and they were taking
8 advantage of Michael Jackson. And he hired an
9 investigative firm in New York to investigate.
10 Do you remember the testimony about finding
11 an offshore account that he thought Sony had set up,
12 et cetera? And he approached Dieter and Konitzer
13 and said, "Where did this $900,000 go? You've just
14 withdrawn it. Justify it."
15 And of course Mr. Auchincloss, in a
16 remarkable shift of position, got up and tried to
17 prove they hadn't stolen anything.
18 If LeGrand was concerned about these alleged
19 co-conspirators and what they were doing to Michael,
20 does that suggest Michael is involved in a
21 conspiracy with them? Or does it suggest the same
22 old pattern of Michael Jackson, the creative genius,
23 generating hundreds of millions of dollars in his
24 lifetime, and letting people sign his name, and
25 letting people steal money, and letting people get
26 away with all sorts of financial things? Otherwise,
27 with what you've seen of his finances, why would he
28 have cash flow problems? Why would that Beatles
1 catalog be leveraged?
2 He hasn't always managed money well, but
3 he's not a criminal, and he doesn't commit crimes
4 because of it.
5 You know that Weizner and Konitzer tried to
6 take over his business, because LeGrand said so. He
7 saw documents where they said, "We're going to take
8 over Michael Jackson's affairs." You know that
9 Schaffel was stealing from Michael Jackson. Their
10 star witness, Rudy Provencio, who none of you would
11 buy a used car from, believe me, he said Schaffel
12 was stealing from Michael Jackson.
13 Remember Provencio, who suddenly came up
14 with a diary at the last minute, who was recording
15 people's phone calls not knowing he was being
16 recorded as well, and in one classic comment said,
17 "I'm not even giving my lawyer information. This is
18 for the book, honey." Remember the word "honey"?
19 This is the guy they want you to think you
20 can trust, their star witness on conspiracy, who
21 couldn't put Michael Jackson anywhere either, except
22 in a recording studio.
23 They did nothing to refute the notion that
24 Geragos, as any lawyer would in his position, put
25 the Arvizos under surveillance. You're allowed to
26 do that. It's done in cases all the time. People
27 do in divorce cases. They do it in criminal cases,
28 and they have private investigators who are
1 licensed, like Miller was, follow people around to
2 see where they're going.
3 And based on what you knew of the Arvizos,
4 you can see why. It's not part of a conspiracy. It
5 was a lawyer representing a celebrity client who he
6 feared was about to be shaken down, about to be
7 taken advantage of, who had a history of being taken
8 advantage of, and he did exactly what he should have
9 done. He investigated. And he was very open about
10 what he did.
11 As I said before, if this was a conspiracy
12 to hide a family, or worse, whatever they're saying,
13 why is Miller using a bonded, licensed mover, who
14 had pretty good record-keeping procedures, to move
15 their stuff into storage and put it under his name?
16 Dickerman and Janet and Masada meet at The
17 Laugh Factory on the 21st. Dickerman never calls
18 the police. And as I said before, after the 21st,
19 she continues to go to these various embassies and
20 get her visas and her passport stuff done.
21 Does that suggest there's a conspiracy going
22 on? Does that suggest she's worried? Or does it
23 suggest, "Hey," you know, "We wanted Michael to be
24 our family. We wanted to be included. There's
25 nobody left now. Gavin's healed. Star's healed.
26 We're not going to use illness to generate money
27 anymore through any lies or manipulations. We're
28 slipping away from Mr. Jackson. These guys are
1 taking over his affairs. They're keeping us away
2 from him. Now how do we get something out of this?"
3 Go to a lawyer.
4 That's what she did, and that's what she's
5 still doing.
6 You've heard a lot about the body wax, the
7 shopping sprees, the hair appointment. She had an
8 excuse for everything, that somehow she was being
9 forced to the orthodontist against her will, that
10 somehow she was being forced to get a body wax
11 against her will.
12 The woman from the salon came in, and it was
13 interesting. She said Janet looked at her and said,
14 "I'm from South America." A little strange. Sounds
15 like she might have Brazil on her mind, and it
16 sounds like it may not be something she's
17 particularly concerned about.
18 But she was left there alone. She could
19 have done whatever she wanted. She could have
20 called 9-1-1 at any time. She wanted a hair
21 appointment for the next day.
22 I mean, all of these witnesses came in. No
23 one detected any concern by Janet that she was being
24 held against her will. Nobody saw a PR crew
25 following. Nobody substantiated any of the things
26 Janet said to you under oath, because they're false.
27 Her problem, as I said before was, she
28 figured out, "At some point Michael's not going to
1 be our family/father soon. Now what do we do to
2 gain?"
3 And here we are.
4 Now, the prosecutor talked about these
5 alleged prior bad acts.
6 A prosecutor once told me, "Prior bad acts
7 are a band-aid for a bad case," because none of
8 these alleged victims are alleged victims in this
9 case. So why do they bring them in? If they've got
10 such a great case for Gavin being a victim, why are
11 they bringing these people in and why are they
12 trying to sell you false claims of molestation? And
13 I do mean false.
14 Macaulay Culkin says he was never molested.
15 He called it absolutely ridiculous. And they tried
16 to attack Macaulay like he was trying to lie on the
17 stand.
18 They want you to believe people like Ralph
19 Chacon, Adrian McManus and Kassim Abdool rather than
20 Macaulay Culkin or Wade Robson or Brett Barnes.
21 Why does a prosecution come into this
22 courtroom and tell you these three people are
23 victims of molestation when they are absolutely
24 adamant they're not? Why? If they're trying to
25 tell you the truth.
26 Adrian McManus said in a deposition under
27 oath that Mr. Jackson never did anything to any
28 child. Then changes her story; goes to the
1 tabloids. She and Chacon and Abdool find out that
2 Blanca Francia and Jordan Chandler got money, and
3 they want money, too. They don't want to work.
4 They want to be millionaires at Mr. Jackson's
5 expense.
6 Ladies and gentlemen, when he settled those
7 two cases in the early '90s, he became a real target
8 for people who don't want to work. And he still is.
9 McManus, a Judge in this courthouse, in this
10 county, finds that she stole from a child's trust.
11 A Judge in this courthouse finds that she acted with
12 malice against Michael Jackson. She sues Michael
13 Jackson. He cross-complains and decides not to
14 settle that case, just to fight it. It's the
15 longest trial in the history of -- civil trial in
16 the history of this courthouse, six months. And he
17 prevails, and he wins his cross-complaint, and
18 there's a judgment against McManus and Chacon and
19 Kassim for over a million dollars.
20 McManus is found with materials from
21 Neverland stored in her house. She steals from a
22 children's trust. She steals from Mr. Jackson. She
23 has judgments against her. They want you to believe
24 her over these alleged victims who come in and say,
25 "He didn't do anything to us."
26 What does that tell you about their case?
27 What does that tell you about how desperate they are
28 to do something to win?
1 Wade Robson got on the stand and he said,
2 "These claims that I was molested are ridiculous,"
3 were his words.
4 What does Mr. Zonen do? He starts grabbing
5 these books and shoving them in his face, books he's
6 never seen before, and asking him to describe sex
7 acts to you. That's his response. Abusive, mean-
8 spirited, and having nothing to do with seeking the
9 truth. Nothing.
10 Brett Barnes came in and was angry. He
11 said, "It absolutely never happened. I wouldn't
12 stand for it." He was angry. He flew from
13 Australia, he gave up his job, to come here and
14 testify that this stuff is false.
15 Do they want you to believe him?
16 No. No, put your faith and trust in Ralph
17 Chacon, who said he wanted to be a millionaire in
18 his deposition in that case. Put your faith and
19 trust in Kassim Abdool, who forgot that he had
20 signed a statement saying he never saw anything
21 improper happen at Neverland and admitted he wanted
22 to be a millionaire. Put your faith and trust in
23 Adrian McManus. Put your faith and trust in all the
24 trips to the tabloids they made through that agent
25 they hired, who they claim their lawyer was
26 responsible for. Don't believe these three young
27 men who say, "We were never touched."
28 It's the story of this case.
1 Jordan Chandler never testified. He filed a
2 lawsuit with Larry Feldman and got money. Mr.
3 Jackson settled that case in the early '90s. He
4 didn't even come into court, say one way or the
5 other. His mother hasn't seen him.
6 June Chandler, his mother, never testified
7 she saw any molestation. What she testified to was
8 that Michael became essentially a member of their
9 family and stayed at their home in his room. She
10 also said he stayed at her ex-husband's home in the
11 room with Jordan, but she never saw any molestation
12 and never testified to any.
13 And that's a strange story, too, because Joy
14 Robson said, "She's a gold digger." She made a
15 statement in an interview that men had disappointed
16 her in her life and she didn't know if she wanted
17 another man in her life, meaning Michael.
18 Joy was correct. She was out for fame and
19 fortune, and that's what she's all about.
20 Blanca Francia took 20,000 from a tabloid,
21 talked to Larry Feldman and ended up with another
22 lawyer and settled.
23 Jason Francia says tickling went too far
24 after he initially denied anything had happened. He
25 said, "At the age of 16, money became important to
26 me," and he settled.
27 And guess what? No criminal case was ever
28 filed against Michael Jackson for any of these
1 alleged victims.
2 Now, let me ask you this, ladies and
3 gentlemen: If Jason Francia cooperated with Mr.
4 Sneddon, and indeed he said Mr. Sneddon was there
5 for the first meeting with his counselor, I wonder
6 what Mr. Sneddon was trying to do? If he cooperated
7 with the sheriffs, if he allowed himself to be
8 interviewed -- although in his last interview, he
9 said, "Don't tape-record it." Do you remember that?
10 That was an interview having to do with this trial.
11 He and his lawyer showed up at the sheriff's office
12 and said they didn't want it tape-recorded, all
13 right?
14 But let's assume, and it seems pretty clear,
15 that he cooperated with law enforcement from day
16 one. Remember the cross-examination on his
17 interviews? He first denied anything happened.
18 Then these police were leaning on him with curse
19 words, et cetera, and he said, "Well, he tickled
20 me," and then he started remembering it went too
21 far, et cetera, said his genitals were touched.
22 Let's assume all of that's true. He
23 cooperates. He works with Mr. Sneddon. He works
24 with the sheriffs. Why was a case not filed? Why?
25 Because they didn't think they could win one
26 with him. He took money. His mom took money. His
27 mom went to a tabloid. He came into court and said,
28 "Gee, I didn't even know my mom went to a tabloid."
1 Mr. Zonen said that to you in his closing argument a
2 little while ago like you're supposed to believe it.
3 He didn't tell you he didn't want his interview with
4 the police tape-recorded, did he?
5 No criminal case for any of these people.
6 Phillip LeMarque. I've already talked
7 Chacon, McManus, Abdool. They were all part of that
8 group that did the same thing.
9 Phillip LeMarque, he was the chef that
10 claims that Macaulay Culkin was being touched, when
11 Macaulay Culkin says he wasn't being touched.
12 Remember, he was the one who tried to up his price
13 to $500,000 for a story and said, "I was just
14 kidding around." He had that agent representing
15 him. He kept upping the price, and eventually he
16 found out the agent sold the story himself.
17 You're going to trust him over Macaulay
18 Culkin?
19 They want you to. That's what they want.
20 If you listen to them, Macaulay, Wade, Brett, all
21 came here to lie under oath and say they weren't
22 molested. Do you buy any of that?
23 I want to mention one other thing about
24 these families.
25 The prosecution would like you to think that
26 Michael Jackson, the manipulative monster, sort of
27 befriends families and just uses them and discards
28 them, and that he somehow has a pattern of doing
1 this, and he did it to the Arvizos, those poor
2 souls.
3 These families have been friends of Michael
4 Jackson, in one case almost 20 years. They consider
5 Michael to be in their family. They love him as a
6 family member. They trust him. They have stayed
7 friends all these years, and if they wanted to
8 develop false claims, like others, they could have.
9 And they could have stood in line for millions, the
10 Robsons, the Barneses, Macaulay.
11 They didn't.
12 And when their family member, their friend,
13 was in trouble in this courtroom, they came here to
14 testify, and they didn't have to.
15 Macaulay Culkin is 24 years old. He is very
16 wealthy and very successful. He's on top of the
17 world. He's in his 20s. You're immortal in your
18 20s. He didn't have to come here and testify for
19 his friend. He did it because he wanted to do the
20 right thing.
21 And the same with Brett Barnes flying from
22 Australia.
23 The same with Wade Robson. He's a
24 successful choreographer now.
25 They came here to stand up for their friend
26 in a time of need and tell the truth.
27 And they want you to believe Chacon, Abdool
28 and McManus and LeMarque rather than these three
1 individuals and their families, sisters, mothers, et
2 cetera.
3 What does it tell you about their motives?
4 What does it tell you about their case? What does
5 it tell you about what they're willing to do to try
6 and win in this courtroom?
7 I have some timelines I just want to quickly
8 go through with you before we get into transcript,
9 if I may.
10 J.C. Penney suit. All right. August 27th,
11 '98, the arrest. Then you have the lawsuit filed in
12 '99, okay?
13 Janet files for divorce in October of 2001,
14 right before the settlement. The settlement checks
15 are received, and ten days later she wants emergency
16 welfare assistance.
17 And as I said to you before, this provides a
18 lens through which you can look at this case,
19 because the sexual assault claims evolved later on.
20 That's why her lawyer was so shocked at the
21 deposition.
22 Janet Arvizo versus David Arvizo. 9-29-01,
23 she tells the Los Angeles Police Department her
24 husband assaulted her. Later on, as things evolve,
25 she claims false imprisonment and child molestation
26 on Davellin, where Davellin says she doesn't
27 remember it. Her mother told her about it.
28 Now, I'm not saying David is some prize
1 character. Apparently he's not. Sounds bad news to
2 me and probably to you. But did he really molest
3 Davellin? Or did Janet concoct it? And would Janet
4 concoct false claims of sexual touching? Ask
5 yourselves that question.
6 Here's the lawsuit developing against
7 Michael Jackson.
8 February 21st, she meets with Attorney Bill
9 Dickerman at The Laugh Factory. They have a number
10 of meetings with Masada. She meets Attorney Larry
11 Feldman April 3rd. He has her meet with Stan Katz,
12 his business associate, on May 15th. Feldman goes
13 to the police in June. Gavin's first interview is
14 July. And all the while she's having meetings with
15 Masada, Dickerman, Feldman and Katz, and the claims
16 get bigger and bigger and bigger.
17 Remember the correspondence that Dickerman
18 sent Geragos? Nothing about false imprisonment,
19 nothing about alcohol, nothing about molestation.
20 Begins with, "Make sure nobody has the rights to our
21 film footage. Give us our stored materials back.
22 Stop harassing us." Evolves, evolves, evolves.
23 And you got to ask yourself this question:
24 Gavin says he never told his mother, and he went to
25 the police and finally said, "I was molested" in
26 July. Why did they go to Feldman in April? Why
27 does anybody go to Feldman in a situation like this?
28 Do any of you really think they didn't have in mind
1 a molestation case when they went to Feldman?
2 And you know something? Three lawyers in
3 this courtroom, Feldman, Dickerman and a lawyer for
4 Blanca Francia, all told you Gavin, Star, Davellin,
5 they have till the age of 18 before the clock starts
6 ticking on a civil suit. Feldman told you there's
7 still time for Janet to sue Michael Jackson. And he
8 told you he filed a Notice of Claim against Los
9 Angeles County, and there's still time for Star and
10 Gavin to file a claim against Los Angeles County.
11 And Janet on the stand tried to hesitate
12 about whether he still represents her. They were
13 playing all these games. But the fact is, he'd been
14 on the phone with her recently, he'd been on the
15 phone with Jay Jackson, he had been helping her with
16 subpoenas. What do you think is going on?
17 If the time hasn't run to file a civil case,
18 and if a conviction here allows you to automatically
19 win it, and the lawyer's still in touch with these
20 alleged victims, what do you think is going on?
21 And by the way, remember in the J.C. Penney
22 case, in her deposition Janet said, "Initially I
23 only wanted an apology, and I said there would be no
24 civil suit." Do you remember that?
25 Did she keep her word? Did she file a civil
26 suit eventually when she realized, "I can get some
27 money out of this deal?" Did sexual assault claims
28 then evolve later on?
1 Yes. Same pattern. Same motives. Same
2 lies.
3 Just like here. Just like here. She just
4 needs one more thing: You to convict Michael. All
5 this group wants. Masada, Dickerman, Feldman, Katz
6 and the Arvizos. That's all they need. And you
7 have that power in your hands to make them rich, and
8 they'll never have to work a day in their life. You
9 have the power.
10 I talked about the questionable timing of
11 this so-called molestation. February 6th, airing of
12 the Bashir documentary. There's a suspected child
13 abuse report filed with DCFS February 10th. You
14 have the rebuttal taping and the DCFS interview on
15 the 19th and 20th. You got all these things going
16 on.
17 Look when they say the alleged molestation
18 takes place. Does it make sense to any of you? How
19 can it?
20 Their problem was what they did on the 19th
21 and 20th.
22 Ladies and gentlemen, remember when Janet
23 was asked questions about the Brad Miller interview
24 on the 16th of February where she praised Michael
25 Jackson as a father figure, someone who came into
26 their life, mentored her children, kind,
27 considerate, and she said it was all true. I'll
28 show you the transcript. She said it was all true.
1 But then she got there on the 20th and said
2 it was all scripted, and she said essentially the
3 same things.
4 They had to allege molestation after the
5 20th because of all the statements they'd been
6 making before that date. It's purely a manipulative
7 gesture. And you're going to see through it, I
8 believe.
9 At this point I'd like to go into some of
10 the trial testimony of Gavin Arvizo, because I think
11 you'll find it quite revealing, especially in light
12 of what Mr. Zonen said to you today.
13 "Did you ever go down there and drink any
14 alcohol without Mr. Jackson being present?
15 "No."
16 Under oath.
17 "And did you have -- don't tell us what she
18 said, just tell us - I want to know - did you
19 have any conversations with her?
20 "Yes.
21 "Did you have any conversation with her
22 about leaving?
23 "Yes.
24 "Did you want to leave, you personally?
25 "Not really, because I was kinda having
26 fun."
27 This is about leaving Neverland.
28 Remember the police interview they showed
1 you at the end of their case?
2 "I was scared. I wanted to leave."
3 He's asked about the Bashir documentary
4 where, as you know, he said nothing bad happens in
5 Mr. Jackson's bed. Remember that?
6 Well, as I said before, when all the furor
7 starts and all the pressures from every side begin
8 and the storm starts building is when they now claim
9 molestation happens.
10 He's asked about Mr. Jackson:
11 "Did Mr. Jackson ever say anything to you
12 about going to Brazil?
13 "Yeah.
14 "What did he say?
15 "He said that we were going to go to Brazil,
16 that we were going to have a good time.
17 "Do you remember anything else Mr. Jackson
18 said to you about the trip?
19 "That he was going to come a week later
20 after we got there."
21 Now, assuming that's true and assuming they
22 are planning a trip to Brazil, all of them, why
23 can't you cancel it? And wasn't it cancelled? The
24 tickets weren't purchased. The trip was cancelled.
25 Nobody went out of the country. The Arvizos went
26 home.
27 Where's the crime? Please tell me. Where's
28 the crime? Is it a crime to plan a trip abroad and
1 cancel it?
2 If you listen to the prosecution, it was a
3 crime when Mr. Jackson thought of having a press
4 conference in Florida and then cancelled it. Big
5 nefarious part of a conspiracy. Nonsense.
6 "We would only drink with Michael."
7 "So -- all right. So when you came back
8 from Calabasas and Mr. Jackson was there, did you
9 drink with him?
10 "Yes."
11 He keeps saying they only drank with
12 Michael, but the witnesses have proven that's a lie.
13 A lie under oath. Repeatedly he says it.
14 Why? Because it's to their advantage to say
15 it. And you're supposed to believe him beyond a
16 reasonable doubt on alcohol. He's the only alleged
17 victim with alcohol.
18 This is Mr. Sneddon's questions:
19 "And where were you when you saw Mr. Jackson
20 coming up the stairs?"
21 Do you remember the testimony of Star and
22 Gavin about Mr. Jackson coming up the stairs of his
23 room naked? I'd like you to look carefully what
24 happens here.
25 Mr. Sneddon: "And where were you when you
26 saw Mr. Jackson coming up the stairs?
27 "Me and my brother were laying on the bed.
28 "Q. And what were you doing?
1 "I think we were just laying there.
2 "Q. All right. And Mr. Jackson came up
3 the stairs. Did you notice anything?
4 "Yeah, he was naked.
5 "Q. When you say 'naked,' what do you mean
6 by that?
7 "A. Like not clothes on.
8 "Q. Did Mr. Jackson do or say anything at
9 that point in time?
10 "No, he just ran up and just got something
11 and went back down."
12 "Q. By Mr. Sneddon: I'm sorry?
13 "A. I think he just ran up there and got
14 something and went back downstairs.
15 "Q. Do you recall him saying anything at
16 that point?
17 "A. No.
18 "Q. And what was your reaction to what you
19 saw?
20 "A. Nothing. It was just kind of like --
21 me and my brother were kind of like, 'Eeuuww,'
22 you know what I mean.
23 "Q. Kind of like what?
24 "'Eeuuww,' like we never really saw a grown
25 man, like, naked before."
26 Which, of course, is baloney, but....
27 Here we go again. At some point -- now,
28 they're trying to make that look like some kind of a
1 molester or something, that Mr. Jackson was in his
2 room, came out of the bathroom, came up the stairs,
3 saw them, and ran back down again. Nothing
4 nefarious happened at all.
5 "Q. At some point did you tell somebody
6 else that you'd been drinking alcohol in
7 connection with the fact that you had to collect
8 your pee in that bottle?
9 "Yes."
10 Now -- keep going.
11 "Who was that?
12 "It was my mom."
13 I want to present something to you.
14 He admits at 4:00 in the morning telling his
15 mother that he had wine. His mother admits on the
16 stand that that happened, that she knew he had wine.
17 They have an appointment at Kaiser Hospital that
18 morning. Janet takes possession of the urine
19 sample. Vinnie's driving.
20 Now, does Gavin want that test if he's been
21 drinking wine? Does Janet want that test if she
22 knows he's been drinking wine? Do they really want
23 to go to Kaiser and have him fail that test?
24 What she came in here and said to you was,
25 "I noticed suddenly urine was missing and we never
26 had the test."
27 Do you believe her? Do you believe Gavin?
28 Should you believe them? Is it possible the two of
1 them didn't want to have the test? They wanted to
2 make their appointment, because this was their
3 treating physician. Do you necessarily believe
4 Vinnie had something to do with this?
5 Think about their lack of credibility, their
6 lies under oath, their manipulative scams and
7 schemes. Are you sure they're victims when it comes
8 to this urine sample and lack of test? What do you
9 think?
10 Let me go back:
11 "What did you say to your mother?
12 "Well, I called her and I told her, 'Well,
13 Mom, you know how Jesus drank juice? I mean,
14 Jesus drank wine?'
15 "And then she told me -- I don't know. I
16 don't remember what exactly she said. She said
17 like, 'Yeah.'
18 "And then, like, I just tried to tell her
19 that -- I'm not really too sure what happened in
20 that conversation. I know I called my mom and I
21 told her."
22 Their assumption is you must believe
23 everything Janet said about suddenly finding urine
24 missing, that they're victims. Why should you
25 believe it?
26 I know this: Michael Jackson's nowhere near
27 any of this.
28 I actually thought this was going to appear
1 a little earlier, but we're back on that subject of
2 Mr. Jackson going up naked, seeing them and running
3 down the stairs. This is Mr. Sneddon:
4 "And the time you said he was naked --
5 "Yes.
6 "-- and I asked you whether or not he said
7 anything to you at that particular point in
8 time --
9 "Uh-huh."
10 "--and you said you didn't recall anything?
11 "I do not.
12 "Do you recall testifying at the grand
13 jury?
14 "Yes.
15 "You testified there a couple of times, did
16 you not?
17 "Yes.
18 "One time that I asked you questions and one
19 time Mr. Zonen did?
20 "Yes.
21 "Would it refresh your recollection if I
22 showed you what you said to the grand jury about
23 that incident?
24 "Probably."
25 And in other words, Mr. Sneddon didn't like
26 the answer when he said nothing happened.
27 Mr. Jackson did nothing untoward or
28 improper. Mr. Jackson ran up the stairs, saw them,
1 and ran down. That wasn't enough for Mr. Sneddon,
2 so he wanted to give a transcript to his own witness
3 to remind him of what he should say.
4 Okay. So he does it. He does it, right in
5 front of you:
6 "Gavin, with regard to that portion of your
7 testimony when you indicated to this jury just a
8 little while ago that you had no recollection of
9 what Mr. Jackson said when he walked in front of
10 you naked; do you recall that?
11 "Yes, well, he didn't really walk. He just
12 came up the stairs.
13 "He came up the stairs?
14 "Yes.
15 "And you saw that he was naked?
16 "Yes.
17 "And I asked you if you recall whether he
18 said anything to you, do you recall that, in
19 front of this jury here?
20 "Yes.
21 "And you said you did not?
22 "Yes."
23 And it goes on and on. It's the story of
24 this case. Anything to win.
25 THE COURT: All right. We'll stop for the
26 afternoon. See you tomorrow morning at 8:30.
27 (The proceedings adjourned at 2:30 p.m.) 1 Santa Maria, California
2 Friday, June 3, 2005
3 8:30 a.m.
4
5 THE COURT: Good morning, everyone.
6 COUNSEL AT COUNSEL TABLE: (In unison)
7 Good morning, Your Honor.
8 THE COURT: Mr. Mesereau?
9 MR. MESEREAU: Thank you, Your Honor.
10 Good morning.
11 THE JURY: (In unison) Good morning.
12 MR. MESEREAU: Ladies and gentlemen,
13 yesterday I summed up for you a history of con
14 artists, actors and liars in the Arvizo family. I
15 talked about welfare fraud. I talked about perjury.
16 I talked about the J.C. Penney case. I talked about
17 fake disability claims. Fake food stamp claims.
18 Fake unemployment claims. Signing documents under
19 penalty of perjury that are false. I talked about
20 fake bank accounts.
21 I talked about Janet Arvizo putting her
22 children on stage to do plays about their poverty.
23 I talked about Gavin being an actor.
24 Chris Tucker telling you that he was cunning
25 and smart; that he didn't trust him; that he warned
26 Michael Jackson, "Stay away. Something is wrong
27 with these people."
28 And unfortunately, Michael didn't listen.
1 With respect to the issue of actors, please
2 consider, additionally, the following:
3 Gavin Arvizo testified that when he went to
4 Neverland to do the Bashir documentary, he thought
5 it was an audition. Janet Arvizo in the rebuttal
6 video testified her children wanted to be in movies.
7 There is evidence that Star wanted to be in a
8 documentary and that's why Michael Jackson did the
9 Neverland documentary that Star narrated.
10 These people wanted to be actors. They
11 wanted to be around celebrities. They are actors.
12 And Paralegal Mary Holzer told you that Janet
13 admitted to her that Gavin knew his lines, Star had
14 trouble, and she was coaching these kids in the J.C.
15 Penney case.
16 I told you that the J.C. Penney case had two
17 primary players, Janet and Gavin. It began with
18 Gavin shoplifting, and his testimony under oath at a
19 very young age buttressed Janet's fraudulent claims.
20 You can't just look at the Arvizo family in
21 terms of Janet's misdeeds. You've got to look at
22 the whole group. You've got to look at broad scams.
23 David, as I said yesterday, was more like a
24 bull in a china shop. He just comes out and says,
25 "Give me money."
26 Janet's much more sophisticated. She gets
27 to know you. She hugs you. She loves you. You're
28 part of her family. And then she tells you a tale
1 of woe and she gets money.
2 Hamid was the classic example. She tells
3 him her tales of woe, and he writes her a $2,000
4 check, and he hardly knows her.
5 Now, Mr. Zonen yesterday made a broad
6 statement to you, and you have to take his broad
7 statements and put them under a microscope in the
8 jury room. He said, "Michael Jackson shows adult
9 material to kids."
10 My question to you is, who?
11 Macaulay Culkin never said he showed him
12 anything. Wade Robson never said he showed him
13 anything. Brett Barnes never said he showed him
14 anything. Jordie Chandler didn't testify. And even
15 Jason Francia, who said he was improperly tickled,
16 never testified that Mr. Jackson showed him any
17 adult material.
18 The only people who have come before you to
19 say they were shown adult material by Mr. Jackson
20 are con artists, actors and liars.
21 And the only forensic evidence they had to
22 hang their hat on are fingerprints on some girlie
23 magazines that were owned by Michael Jackson. And
24 you know that everywhere the Arvizo children went,
25 they would rummage through drawers, rummage through
26 the house. They did it at the dentist's office.
27 They did it in Vernee Watson Johnson's home. This
28 is the way they behave.
1 And unfortunately, Michael was rather lax
2 and generous, as Kiki Fournier said, too generous in
3 letting people run through his room, run through his
4 house, run through Neverland. And he's paying a
5 price for it right now.
6 But it's not a crime.
7 There is a piece of evidence lacking in the
8 prosecution's case that is very significant,
9 particularly with allegations like this. And let me
10 explain what I'm talking about.
11 Typically, in a sex-crimes-type
12 investigation -- and let's face it, in this case,
13 you've had at least 70 officers running everywhere
14 trying to find anything they can on Michael Jackson
15 because he's a mega celebrity.
16 But typically in this kind of investigation,
17 you have what is called a pretext phone call.
18 Typically, the police will get the alleged victim,
19 they will sit with the alleged victim, and they will
20 talk about making a phone call to the person who's
21 suspected of committing the crime. And I'm sure
22 you're familiar with this from television. They
23 will make the phone call. The so-called victim
24 makes the call, and the so-called victim is told to
25 ask certain questions that are incriminating in
26 nature.
27 For example, Gavin could have called Michael
28 Jackson and said, "Why did you improperly touch me?
1 Why did you do that to me in bed? Why did you touch
2 me that day we were together? Why, when we were in
3 the wine cellar drinking, did you do this or do
4 that?" And typically the police are listening in,
5 and they're recording it, and that becomes their
6 primary evidence.
7 Now, particularly in a case like this, where
8 you have no independent witnesses, with credibility,
9 watching the alleged molestation, and you have no
10 forensic evidence to support it, you would think, if
11 they did anything, it would have been a phone call
12 like that.
13 You know why they didn't do it?
14 Look at that police interview. Gavin
15 refuses. Doesn't want to make a call to Michael
16 Jackson. And Gavin is someone who has been schooled
17 by his parents to very effortlessly call
18 celebrities, one after another, after another, after
19 another. He's not shy about phone calls. He's not
20 shy about contacting Jay Leno, Chris Tucker, Michael
21 Jackson, Suli McCullough, you name it.
22 Why no recorded phone conversation with an
23 incriminating statement from Michael Jackson?
24 Because he knew if he did that, he wouldn't get an
25 incriminating statement, because it didn't happen.
26 Now, they'll probably tell you he was
27 terrified, he was scared, he was traumatized to be
28 on the phone. That's a bunch of baloney.
1 I'm going to show you Gavin testified on the
2 witness stand that Michael is a nice person, even in
3 this courtroom. He's not afraid of Michael. He's
4 angry that Michael abandoned his family and didn't
5 take care of them for the rest of their life.
6 And as I said yesterday, they put demeanor
7 in issue. The only time you ever saw him get angry
8 was when we talked about what Michael really had
9 done for he and his family and what had happened.
10 And his anger came out when he made the false
11 statement that Michael had done nothing for his
12 family.
13 Remember, he started using this scripted
14 phrase, "In my 11-year-old mind, I believed George
15 Lopez had done more, because he went to the hospital
16 and bought me clothes. In my 11-year-old mind, I
17 thought others had done more because they were at
18 the hospital. In my 11-year-old mind, Michael
19 Jackson hadn't done much for me at all."
20 And I went through all the things he had
21 done. The visits to Neverland, the plane flights,
22 the hotel, the truck, all the blood drives, you name
23 it. The gifts, the watch, the jacket. I've
24 probably forgotten half of them.
25 Michael did all sorts of things for this
26 family. The problem was, they wanted it to
27 continue, and they realized at some point it would
28 not continue. Michael was not going to be their
1 benefactor for the rest of their life, and that's
2 when all the trouble started.
3 In that police interview, where the
4 prosecution says you watch the demeanor of a victim,
5 you see a victim of molestation act in an
6 inappropriate way, the way you would expect, you
7 will also see someone who's an actor. You see
8 someone who is acting. And you see someone who's
9 hesitant about condemning Michael Jackson, who
10 fundamentally he likes, because he said he liked him
11 right on the witness stand. I'm going to show you.
12 So you've got to look at that tape with
13 skepticism. You've got to look at it and be very
14 careful with what conclusions you draw, because as I
15 said before, Mr. Robel had already decided he wanted
16 a criminal case. He already decided the Arvizos
17 were victims. He knew nothing about their
18 background as con artists, actors and liars.
19 I also said to you, when asked, "What's a
20 bad thing?" Gavin never said, "Lie." Never said,
21 "Cheat." Never said, "Steal." He had to struggle.
22 And he talked about killing people, he talked about
23 breaking things. I went back to the transcript. He
24 talks about breaking a window. He talks about
25 staying awake at night.
26 Now, isn't it normal for a child, when
27 pressed to that extent, "Tell me something else
28 that's wrong. Tell me something else that's wrong.
1 Tell me something else that's wrong," to say, "Not
2 tell the truth? To lie"?
3 He can't say it, because that's the way he's
4 been raised. And even when he was asked, "How did
5 you learn right from wrong?" he never really had an
6 answer to that. He said, "I kind of figured it out
7 myself." Just look at the tape.
8 Gavin, as Chris Tucker said, cunning, smart.
9 He worried him.
10 And he and Star tried to make it look as if
11 they were innocent little lambs and Michael taught
12 them everything about sex. They didn't know what an
13 erection was until they met Michael. They didn't
14 know what ejaculation was until they met Michael.
15 It's all Michael, Michael, Michael.
16 And I said yesterday, if you convict him of
17 anything, they are going to be multi-millionaires
18 through Attorneys Feldman and Dickerman. It's all
19 set up. They're just waiting. Waiting to
20 celebrate. Waiting to walk into court. Waiting for
21 the biggest con of their careers, right here. They
22 just need you to help them. That's all.
23 You have to look at the changing stories.
24 You have to look at the inconsistent statements by
25 Gavin and Star, because they're the only witnesses
26 to this so-called molestation.
27 And as I said to you yesterday, look at that
28 tape. Gavin says he's being molested after they get
1 back from Florida. That only changes when they
2 realize what the import, what the effect of the
3 rebuttal tape and the DCFS interview is, where they
4 praise Michael to the hilt, where they say he's
5 wonderful, he never would touch them.
6 They don't change the dates till they
7 realize they told the social workers, in Jay
8 Jackson's apartment, from the DCFS that they were
9 angry about these accusations. Gavin said he was
10 angry about this claim that Michael had touched him.
11 It's only when they realized what this all does that
12 the dates change.
13 He says in that police interview, "I think
14 he touched me five times." He says here it was
15 twice. Everything starts changing.
16 And I'm about to show you some transcript
17 testimony of him which I think will raise even more
18 red flags:
19 "Q. You went to two lawyers and a
20 psychologist, who Larry Feldman referred you to,
21 before you went to any police officer, right?
22 "Yes.
23 "Now, these weren't the first attorneys you
24 ever talked to, correct?
25 "I've talked to other people, other
26 attorneys before."
27 This is a 15-year-old alleged victim whose
28 family has been swimming around lawyers and swimming
1 around manipulations and swimming around false
2 claims for years.
3 Officer Robel said that Gavin told him that
4 his grandmother made the statement of, "If men don't
5 masturbate, they'll rape a female." But he came
6 into court and said, "Michael Jackson told that to
7 me." He was confronted with that lie. And what was
8 his explanation?
9 "Q. But your grandmother said to you, 'If
10 men don't do it, men might get to a point where
11 they might go ahead and rape a woman,' correct?
12 "Yes. Michael also told me that."
13 Now, what are the chances of his grandmother
14 and Michael telling him, word for word, that
15 identical statement? He's a liar, he's a
16 perjurer, and that's an excuse.
17 This is where he has the discussion with the
18 teacher, where he says, "Michael never touched me,"
19 okay? And I want you not just to look at what he
20 says, okay? I want you to envision and recall how
21 he tried to finesse it on the witness stand:
22 "Okay. And the purpose of the discussion
23 was what, if you know?
24 "A. It was probably about Michael.
25 "Q. Okay. You say 'probably about
26 Michael'?
27 "Uh-huh.
28 "But you're not sure?
1 "A. I'm not sure that the whole
2 conversation was about...."
3 "Okay. But sometime in that conversation,
4 Dean Albert looked at you in the eye and said,
5 'Are these allegations that Mr. Jackson sexually
6 abused you true,' right?
7 "Uh-huh.
8 "And you said they were not true, right?
9 "Yeah. I told them that Michael didn't do
10 anything to me.
11 "And the second time he asked you, you said
12 to him, 'No, he did not touch me in any sexually
13 inappropriate way,' correct?
14 "A. I don't know.
15 "You don't know?
16 "A. I'm pretty sure I told him that.
17 "Okay.
18 "But, I mean, I don't know how exactly it
19 happened."
20 That's Gavin, in this courtroom on the
21 witness stand, fudging around, finessing how he's
22 going to handle the fact that he went to a teacher
23 and twice said, "Michael Jackson never touched me."
24 Okay. Now, I only put this statement up
25 here because you may recall Davellin got up and
26 said, "All my brother ever did in class was talk
27 when he shouldn't have," okay?
28 And what they were trying to do, because
1 they've all been scripted by their attorneys, they
2 want you to think that he's a molestation victim,
3 and suddenly became aggressive, and combative, and
4 had disciplinary problems because of the
5 molestation.
6 And Davellin kept saying, "The only problem
7 he had at school was speaking when he shouldn't."
8 We went through a litany of problems with
9 all these teachers. Getting up and singing in the
10 middle of class. Fighting. Remember, he said, "One
11 teacher, I lost respect for him. He sunk down to my
12 level."
13 This is a very precocious disciplinary
14 problem, this person Gavin, not the little lamb they
15 want you to think he is.
16 "Okay. And in summary, you've had some
17 disciplinary problems with Mr. Geraldt, right?
18 "A. I had a lot of disciplinary problems.
19 "Q. What disciplinary problems did you
20 have?
21 "A. I would get into fights sometimes at
22 school."
23 I only put that there because Davellin
24 testified under oath he never got in fights.
25 You know what's interesting? Do you
26 remember, every Arvizo witness said they've never
27 discussed the case with each other. All these
28 Arvizo witnesses said, "We don't talk about Bashir
1 together."
2 And I looked at Davellin and I said, "Well,
3 how come on that rebuttal video your mother looks at
4 Gavin and says, 'Let's hold hands like you did in
5 Bashir'? How could that happen if she didn't look
6 at the Bashir documentary?"
7 And she had no answer.
8 "Q. Do you remember telling the Santa
9 Barbara sheriffs that Michael Jackson first
10 touched you inappropriately during your last days
11 at Neverland?
12 "Yes."
13 But hasn't he made statements that he was
14 inappropriately touched right after the Miami trip?
15 When did this change? I just told you when
16 it changed. When they realized that these
17 statements were going to haunt them: Brad Miller,
18 the rebuttal video, and the DCFS interview.
19 "Okay. Were you ever personally threatened
20 by anyone associated with Mr. Jackson?
21 "No.
22 That's testimony in this courtroom. Look at
23 the police interview they showed you last week. He
24 says Frank said his mother would be killed.
25 He flip-flops all over the place, because
26 he's a liar.
27 "Q. Do you recall telling them the
28 following, 'We didn't drink a lot'?
1 "A. No.
2 "Would it refresh your recollection if I
3 show you a transcript from that interview?
4 "Yes."
5 I'm talking about the police interview.
6 Gavin and the Santa Barbara sheriffs.
7 "Q. Mr. Arvizo, have you had a chance to
8 look at that page?
9 "A. Yes.
10 "Q. Does it refresh your recollection
11 about what you told the Santa Barbara sheriffs?
12 "A. Not really.
13 "Q. You told them, "We didn't drink a
14 lot,' right?
15 "A. I don't know. It says it on there."
16 Didn't he tell you they drank night after
17 night after night? How many lies does this guy have
18 to tell for you to see what's really going on?
19 "Q. You initially told them you didn't
20 drink a lot?
21 "A. That's true.
22 "Q. So you are saying that at different
23 times you gave Mr. Sneddon different accounts of
24 when the molestation supposedly happened?
25 Witness: "Yes."
26 That's Gavin admitting all the flip-flops,
27 the different stories, the fabrications, the
28 inconsistent ways of describing what happened. He's
1 not truthful.
2 And as I said yesterday, if you don't
3 believe him beyond a reasonable doubt, if you don't
4 believe Star beyond a reasonable doubt - and wait
5 till you see what's coming up on Star - they're out
6 of the box. It's over.
7 "Q. Until you realized that you were not
8 going to be part of Michael Jackson's family, you
9 never made any allegation of child molestation,
10 correct?
11 "A. I didn't want to be part of his family.
12 I just saw him as a father figure.
13 "Q. Until you left Neverland for the last
14 time, you never made any allegation of child
15 molestation, correct?
16 "A. I didn't tell anyone until I left for
17 the last time, correct.
18 "Q. And you never called the police until
19 after you'd seen two lawyers, right?
20 Witness: "Yes, it wasn't until I saw two
21 lawyers until I told the police what really
22 happened."
23 When you're molested, when your family
24 thinks you're molested, when parents think their
25 child is molested, who do they go to? The police or
26 lawyers?
27 "Q. Let me ask you what you're talking
28 about. Do you think when your mother said
1 Michael Jackson was honest and told the truth
2 that she was being truthful?
3 "A. Yes. He's a nice man."
4 He said Michael's a nice man right in the
5 courtroom to you under oath.
6 "Q. Mr. Arvizo, you were caught
7 masturbating at Neverland when Michael Jackson
8 wasn't even around, weren't you?
9 "A. No.
10 "Q. You were caught masturbating in a
11 guest quarters, weren't you?
12 "A. No.
13 "Q. No one ever saw you do that?
14 "No.
15 "No one ever talked to you about that?
16 "No one ever talked to me about it."
17 That's false. Rijo didn't come in here and
18 lie under oath. Rijo told the truth.
19 "Q. Was Rijo ever in a guest room with you
20 when you were watching T.V. at Neverland?
21 "A. Um, no. I don't remember really. I
22 mean, I might have hung out with him in a guest
23 room for a minute, but, I mean, I don't remember
24 watching T.V. with him."
25 Lying.
26 "You don't?
27 "No.
28 "Are you saying you don't remember or are
1 you saying it just didn't happen?
2 "A. I don't think it happened.
3 "Q. Okay. Do you recall ever telling Rijo
4 you wanted to look at adult movies on television
5 at Neverland?
6 "No, I don't remember that.
7 "Ever remember stealing alcohol from Michael
8 Jackson's bedroom when Rijo was present?
9 "No.
10 "Ever remember masturbating in front of
11 Rijo?
12 "No.
13 "Now, earlier in your testimony, you said
14 the only time you ever tasted wine was in
15 church. Do you remember that?
16 "Yes."
17 Does anybody believe that? Do you think he
18 never had had wine except in church? Based upon
19 what you've seen about this family and what they
20 say, and what they do, and how they change their
21 stories, and how they lie under oath with no respect
22 for the oath whatsoever, do you believe that?
23 "Q. Are you telling the jury the only time
24 you tasted wine before you went to Neverland was
25 in a church?
26 "Yes.
27 "Did you ever tell Rijo or anyone else at
28 Neverland that you knew what wine tasted like?
1 "No, I don't remember telling them that."
2 Does Rijo have a history of fraud and acting
3 and lying? No.
4 Does Gavin Arvizo? You bet.
5 "Q. Mr. Arvizo, when you claim you were
6 inappropriately touched by Mr. Jackson, you claim
7 there were no witnesses watching, correct?
8 "Yes."
9 And I identified that problem yesterday.
10 You got a lying witness, no independent witness
11 supporting it, and no forensics.
12 And by the way, they want you to think these
13 fingerprints on a couple of magazines are bombshell
14 forensic evidence.
15 What are they evidence of? That he looked
16 at Michael's magazines.
17 Are they evidence of any of these crimes?
18 No.
19 No DNA, no semen, no hair, no fiber.
20 Nothing.
21 "Q. Never knew an employee named Shane
22 Meridith at Neverland?
23 "A. If I did, I don't remember that.
24 "Q. He caught you with an open bottle of
25 alcohol at Neverland, didn't he, when Michael
26 Jackson wasn't even around?
27 "A. No."
28 Do you trust him or do you trust Shane
1 Meridith, who was an impeccable witness? He works
2 at Lompoc. He was a truthful witness, and he had no
3 reason to come in and lie. He doesn't even work at
4 Neverland anymore.
5 "Q. Do you remember ever telling Chris
6 Tucker that you didn't make any money from the
7 fund-raiser?
8 "A. No. Well, what fund-raising?"
9 Look at that.
10 "Q. A fund-raiser for you at The Laugh
11 Factory.
12 "No, no, because we did make money at the
13 Laugh Factory.
14 "Q. Yes. So you never told Chris Tucker,
15 'We didn't make any money from the fund-raiser'?
16 "A. Why would I say that when we did? No,
17 I never said that.
18 "Okay. Do you recall yourself asking Chris
19 Tucker for money?
20 "No."
21 Who do you believe, Chris Tucker or Gavin
22 Arvizo? Why would Chris Tucker come in here to
23 testify and lie? He's one of the most successful
24 actors in the world. He is flying high. He is
25 popular all over the planet. Why does he need to
26 come in here and testify and lie?
27 Do you believe him or do you believe Gavin?
28 Because you got to make a choice.
1 Now, I want you to watch all of this. This
2 is Star's testimony from the courtroom in front of
3 you, under oath, about these claims:
4 "Okay. Before you testified yesterday, had
5 you ever discussed what you were going to say
6 with your mom?
7 "No.
8 "Before you testified yesterday, had you
9 ever discussed with Gavin what you're going to
10 say?
11 "No.
12 "Before you testified yesterday, had you
13 ever discussed with your sister Davellin what you
14 were going to say?
15 "No.
16 "Have you ever discussed this case with your
17 mom?
18 "No.
19 "Ever discussed this case with Gavin?
20 "No.
21 "Have you ever discussed this case with
22 Davellin?
23 "No.
24 "Never discussed it with your mom before you
25 went" --
26 This is about the J.C. Penney case, by the
27 way.
28 "Never discussed it with your mom before you
1 went into the deposition, right?
2 "Yes.
3 "Just like you've never discussed the facts
4 of this case with your mom at any time, right?
5 "Yes.
6 "And didn't you say under oath that your
7 mother and dad never fight? That's in the J.C.
8 Penney deposition.
9 "Yes.
10 "Was that true?
11 "Um, I really don't -- sometimes.
12 "I'm sorry. I didn't understand your
13 answer. When you told -- excuse me, let me
14 rephrase. When you stated under oath in the J.C.
15 Penney deposition in the year 2000 that your mom
16 and dad never fight, were you telling the truth?
17 "No.
18 "Did someone tell you to lie in that
19 deposition?
20 "A. I don't remember.
21 "Q. You don't remember at all?
22 "No, it happened a long time ago."
23 Now, this kid's lying at the age of what,
24 nine, ten? He never discussed it with his mother?
25 Nobody told him to lie? Nobody told him what the
26 case is about? It starts with him shoplifting.
27 "Q. You also said in that deposition,
28 under oath, that your dad never hit you. Do you
1 remember that?
2 "A. Not really.
3 "Q. Would it refresh your recollection if
4 I show you that page?
5 "Sure.
6 "You were asked if your dad ever hit you,
7 and you said, 'Never,' right?
8 "Yes.
9 "Was that the truth?
10 "No.
11 "Did someone ever tell you to lie about that
12 under oath in your deposition in the J.C. Penney
13 case?
14 "A. I really don't remember.
15 "Q. Don't remember at all?
16 "A. No. I don't remember nothing from
17 there."
18 Is he telling you the truth? Do you trust
19 him? Do you trust him beyond a reasonable doubt?
20 Do you trust him to the point where you're going to
21 convict Michael Jackson, take away his freedom and
22 reputation? I don't think so, ladies and gentlemen.
23 These are terrible witnesses.
24 "Q. Have your -- excuse me. Did your
25 father ever coach you about what to say in the
26 J.C. Penney deposition?
27 "No.
28 "Did your mother ever coach you about what
1 to say in the J.C. Penney deposition?
2 "No."
3 Then who told them to lie? Who told them to
4 lie to get money from J.C. Penney? He's a young
5 kid.
6 "Please tell the jury why you lied under
7 oath.
8 "I don't remember. It was like five years
9 ago. I don't remember nothing.
10 "By the way, do you remember yesterday when
11 you told the jury that on that plane you looked
12 at a soda can that Michael Jackson had, and you
13 saw a red ring around it?
14 "A. Yes."
15 Remember that testimony?
16 "Q. You told that to the police in one of
17 your interviews also, didn't you?
18 "I think so.
19 "Q. You also told the police that you
20 looked in the can and saw white wine, correct?
21 "A. When?
22 "Q. When you told them there was a red
23 ring around the can, you then told them that you
24 looked in the can and saw white wine, remember?
25 "A. I don't remember saying that.
26 "Would it refresh your recollection if I
27 show you a transcript from a police interview?
28 "Sure."
1 Look what he says:
2 "The lady might have misheard me.
3 "Excuse me, what did you just say?
4 "A. I never looked into the can.
5 "Q. You said a lady might have misheard
6 you?
7 "A. The -- I don't know what her -- what
8 the --
9 "The court reporter?
10 "Yes.
11 "Oh, you think the court reporter made a
12 mistake?
13 "Yes."
14 Any of you believe that?
15 "Q. Do you recall ever being caught in the
16 wine cellar?
17 "A. The wine cellar doesn't have a
18 combination lock."
19 Look at that answer.
20 "Do you recall ever being caught in the wine
21 cellar drinking wine when Michael Jackson wasn't
22 present?
23 "A. Never."
24 Flat-out lie. Shane Meridith caught them.
25 "Q. Never happened?
26 "A. It -- it's always locked, and it
27 always -- it -- to unlock it, you need a key.
28 There's no combination to get in there.
1 "Let me repeat my question. Do you recall
2 ever being caught in the wine cellar at Neverland
3 with Gavin drinking wine when Michael Jackson
4 wasn't even there?
5 "No.
6 "Are you saying that never happened?
7 "Yes.
8 "Do you recall ever being caught at any
9 other location in Neverland drinking wine when
10 Michael Jackson wasn't there?
11 "No."
12 And you already heard the witnesses that
13 contradict them. Lies under oath about a
14 fundamental issue in this case. Reasonable doubt
15 all over the place when lying witnesses come in and
16 make these claims.
17 "Okay. That never happened?
18 "A. Yes.
19 "Okay. Now, you just told the jury
20 voluntarily where the key is to get in the wine
21 cellar, right?
22 "A. No, I said that the door -- the wine
23 cellar needed a key to get in there.
24 "And you knew where the key was, correct?
25 "I knew it was in the lounge.
26 "You knew where it was hanging in the
27 lounge, right?
28 "Not exactly. I didn't know where it was
1 hanging. I just knew it was in the lounge."
2 He always has an out.
3 These kids knew exactly how to get in the
4 wine cellar, and they were caught repeatedly all
5 around Neverland getting into everything.
6 Okay. Another subject:
7 "Had you ever seen any girlie magazines in
8 your life before you say Michael Jackson showed
9 them to you?
10 "Um, no.
11 "Never?
12 "Well, I was only like 11 or 12.
13 "Weren't you caught at Neverland looking in
14 girlie magazines?
15 "I said no.
16 "No one ever caught you and your brother
17 looking at girlie magazines at Neverland?
18 "Never."
19 He was caught by Julio Avila with a girlie
20 magazine in his backpack and said it was from his
21 own home.
22 "Okay. Okay. And your testimony is, until
23 you got to Neverland, you and your brother had
24 never looked at girlie magazines at any time; is
25 that right?
26 "Yes."
27 Flat-out lies. Con artists, actors, liars.
28 Look at this, Star's testimony here:
1 "You told the police in your first interview
2 you looked at www.pussy.com?
3 "No, I was making an example that I was
4 trying to say. That wasn't the exact site. I'm
5 just saying I was just making an example.
6 "Okay. You also told the police you might
7 have looked at www.teenpussy.com, right?
8 "A. No, I never said that.
9 "You never said that to the sheriffs?"
10 All right. But this is a guy who never
11 learned anything about sex until he met Michael
12 Jackson. You're supposed to buy that beyond a
13 reasonable doubt.
14 This is that stairwell incident, okay?
15 Now, do you remember Gavin said Michael
16 Jackson came out of the bathroom, ran up the stairs,
17 saw the two of them there and ran down and nothing
18 happened? And that's what Mr. Sneddon kept trying
19 to get him to say, something bad happened, and he
20 couldn't remember anything bad happening. He said
21 he barely saw Michael Jackson.
22 But this is what Star says:
23 "And you claim you went up the stairwell" --
24 Excuse me, this is the -- pardon me. This
25 is when he says he saw molestation. This is when he
26 says he saw molestation, and he's the only witness
27 to it, there's nobody else. And he sees his brother
28 touched in bed, and his brother doesn't know what's
1 going on because he's asleep, remember?
2 "And you claim you went up the stairwell and
3 saw Mr. Jackson and your brother on that bed on
4 two occasions, right?
5 "Yes.
6 "You also told the jury that those lights
7 were off, correct?
8 "Yes.
9 "You told the jury there was a light in the
10 stairwell that was on, but those lights over the
11 bed were off.
12 "Yes.
13 "You've also told the grand jury that you
14 only watched for a couple seconds.
15 "Yes.
16 "So those lights are off. A light on the
17 stairwell is on. You see it for a few seconds,
18 and you run, correct?
19 "A. Yes.
20 "Okay. Both occasions?
21 "Yes."
22 All right. You have a lying witness. He
23 says there's no lighting in the bedroom. He says it
24 happened for a few seconds, and he ran. Nobody
25 corroborates it. And no forensics prove it. And
26 you're supposed to convict Michael Jackson of
27 serious felonies beyond a reasonable doubt on the
28 basis of this guy alone. It's ridiculous.
1 "Q. Do you remember telling the Santa
2 Barbara Grand Jury when you were asked the
3 question, 'Star, while you were at the ranch, did
4 you have any discussions with your mother
5 about the subject of her wanting to leave the
6 ranch,' and your answer was, 'No'?
7 "A. I remember her saying it to me.
8 Probably don't even remember -- probably didn't
9 even remember at that time.
10 "Would it refresh your recollection if I
11 show you what you told the Santa Barbara Grand
12 Jury?
13 "A. You told me what I said.
14 "Q. Would it refresh your recollection to
15 show you the transcript?
16 "Okay.
17 "May I approach, Your Honor?"
18 And I do.
19 "Does it refresh your recollection about
20 what you told the Santa Barbara Grand Jury under
21 oath?
22 "Yes.
23 "Your answer to the question was, 'No,'
24 correct?
25 "Yes, but probably at the time I didn't
26 remember.
27 "At that time you didn't remember?
28 "Yes. Probably, yes.
1 "Did you ever talk to your brother or sister
2 about leaving the ranch?
3 "No."
4 Now, they have this conspiracy claim, which
5 I submit is ridiculous. The mother is claiming she
6 was held against her will, the family was falsely
7 imprisoned, they were extorted, they were abducted,
8 they were kidnapped, it was a conspiracy engineered
9 by Michael Jackson. And Star tells the grand jury,
10 "She never talked about anything like that to me,"
11 and then comes into court and tries to tell you the
12 opposite.
13 Why? Do you believe him?
14 Remember this?
15 "You don't recall threatening Kiki with a
16 knife when she confronted you in the kitchen?
17 "No.
18 "Never happened?
19 "No."
20 He pulled a knife on Kiki, and he pulled a
21 knife on Angel Vivanco.
22 Lies under oath.
23 "Now, Prosecutor Sneddon asked you what you
24 meant when you told the grand jury you hadn't
25 seen Michael Jackson touch Gavin's genitals or
26 penis. Do you remember that?
27 "Yes.
28 "And your response to Mr. Sneddon was,
1 'Well, I was just talking about the dinner
2 table,' right?
3 "Yes.
4 "How come you never mentioned 'dinner table'
5 to the grand jury when you made that statement?
6 "I don't know if they asked me.
7 "Q. Well, let me just go through what you
8 said, okay?
9 "Okay.
10 "'Q. What kind of things?
11 "'Fix his shirt.
12 "'What else?
13 "'He looked like from -- if you are standing
14 in front him, it looked like he's trying to
15 fix his shirt.'"
16 He is talking about Michael Jackson.
17 "'But it's hard to explain. But he would
18 fix it, like he would touch -- well, it was
19 weird.
20 "He would be touching him a lot?
21 "'Yeah.
22 "Not his genitals, not his penis?
23 "'I never saw that, but I saw it in the
24 paper.'
25 "A. I don't know what I meant by 'paper,'
26 but I was trying to say that I didn't see it that
27 time.
28 "But you never mentioned any kitchen table,
1 right?
2 "But it wasn't the kitchen table.
3 "But you never mentioned any table at all,
4 correct?
5 "I know."
6 So he says, "I've never seen Michael Jackson
7 touch his genitals or penis." He gets caught. He
8 makes up a story that, "I was only talking about the
9 dinner table," and then he contradicts that story.
10 Are you going to believe this guy?
11 "Q. And in none of your police interviews
12 do you limit that statement about not seeing
13 genitals or penis touched at any table,
14 right?
15 "No.
16 "Q. Today is the first time you ever
17 limited that statement to what you saw at
18 a table, correct?
19 "I don't -- yes.
20 "Q. Now, you've indicated the first time
21 you ever discussed any alleged inappropriate
22 touching by Michael Jackson was with
23 Psychologist Stanley Katz, right?
24 "Yes.
25 "And you have admitted that you gave Stanley
26 Katz a different description than you've given in
27 this courtroom, right?
28 "Yes."
1 He admits to inconsistent statements about
2 what happened. And of course he went to Stanley
3 Katz because they first went to Larry Feldman to try
4 and build a molestation case against Michael
5 Jackson, because Larry Feldman had done it many
6 years ago.
7 Now we have Davellin:
8 "Okay. Have you discussed what you were
9 going to say in court with your mother?
10 "No.
11 "Not at all?
12 "A. Not at all.
13 "Did you ever discuss what you were going to
14 say before the Santa Barbara Grand Jury with your
15 mother?
16 "Never.
17 "Never talked about it once?
18 "Never.
19 "Did you discuss what you were going to say
20 in court with either of your brothers?
21 "No.
22 "Just didn't talk to one of them?
23 "No.
24 "At any time?
25 "No.
26 Do you believe any of this?
27 "Did you ever discuss what you were going to
28 say before the Santa Barbara Grand Jury with any
1 of your brothers?
2 "No.
3 "Not once?
4 "Never.
5 "Did your mother ever call you to talk about
6 what you were going to say?
7 "No.
8 "So are you in contact with your brothers?
9 "Yes.
10 "Regular contact?
11 "Of course.
12 "Are you in contact with your mother?
13 "Of course.
14 "Is it regular contact?
15 "Yes, of course.
16 "And yet during all of this regular contact,
17 nobody has even discussed what was going to
18 happen in this courtroom?
19 "What's more important to us is our feelings
20 and if we're okay. That's what's important to
21 us.
22 "So no one ever has even discussed it, right?
23 "No.
24 "Not once?
25 "Never.
26 "How often do you talk to your mom?
27 "Every day. More than -- probably like
28 every hour. We talk a lot.
1 "Every hour?
2 "Yeah, we talk a lot. We're very close.
3 "Okay. Would it be accurate to say you talk
4 to her maybe 12 to 15 times a day?
5 "Probably a little less, but yeah."
6 Do any of you believe she's never discussed
7 the facts of this case with her mother or her
8 brothers? Do any of you buy that for a second?
9 Does it make any sense whatsoever? It does not.
10 "Ever discuss this case with your mother?
11 "No.
12 "Ever discuss this case with Gavin?
13 "No.
14 "Ever discuss this case with Star?
15 "No. At the home that you share with your
16 mom, Gavin and Star, have you ever seen any
17 documents about this case?
18 "No.
19 "None?
20 "Well, just what was given to us for us to
21 think, but we've never seen them. We just saw
22 what they came in, but we've never read through
23 each other's stuff.
24 "Okay. Let me just explore that, if I can.
25 You saw documents come in some type of package;
26 is that correct?
27 "We all got separate packages, yes.
28 "Okay. Now, did you testify before that no
1 one in your family watched the Bashir
2 documentary?
3 "Yes.
4 "Do you recall in the videotape your mother
5 talking about her holding her hand with Gavin
6 like they did in the Bashir documentary?
7 "Yes.
8 "She must have learned that by watching the
9 Bashir documentary, right?
10 "A. No.
11 Do you believe any of this?
12 "Do you know for sure your mother's never
13 seen it?
14 "I don't think so. I'm with my mom always.
15 "Well, there are times you've lived
16 separately from your mother, right?
17 "Yeah, but I would visit almost every day.
18 "Have you ever discussed the Bashir
19 documentary with your mom?
20 "No.
21 "Ever discussed the Bashir documentary with
22 Gavin?
23 "No.
24 "Ever discussed the Bashir documentary with
25 Star?
26 "No.
27 Do any of you believe this? If you lie
28 under oath about something like that, you cannot be
1 trusted.
2 There is a jury instruction about willfully
3 false testimony that I will show you in a little
4 while. It was read to you yesterday by Judge
5 Melville. And it says, basically, someone who will
6 lie about something significant can be totally
7 discounted in a trial.
8 Okay. Now, this has to do with the
9 molestation claim that Janet Arvizo made against
10 David Arvizo when she told the police, not
11 initially, that David Arvizo molested Davellin:
12 "Okay. Okay. But were you present when
13 your mother told the LAPD that your father had
14 molested you?
15 "A. No, but I had heard when he had asked
16 her, 'If you want to get anything off your
17 chest,' and she said, 'Yes,' and that's when
18 they went to the kitchen area of the East L.A.
19 apartment.
20 "Q. But when you were interviewed by the
21 police, you never told them your father had
22 molested you, did you?
23 "A. Because they weren't asking me about
24 that, and I didn't know. I was very young.
25 "Okay. Okay. Have you ever discussed with
26 your mother what your father did to you?"
27 "They were both present that day.
28 "Okay. He had -- she had said, 'Well, I
1 never told Davellin that.' And he says,
2 'Well' -- he said, 'Well, she doesn't need to
3 know anyways.' It was just a horrible experience
4 for me to find out that he did that to me when I
5 was young.
6 "And you found that out through your mother?
7 "From both of them, because he had agreed to
8 it when I was standing right there, because they
9 were having an argument, and my mom screamed it
10 out at him.
11 "And your father agreed he had done that?
12 "Yeah.
13 "Do you want a second?
14 "I'm fine."
15 I've already told you that Gavin told the
16 DCFS in the 1990s his mother had abused him, so what
17 I'm pointing out to you is, there is a history,
18 proven history, of making molestation and abuse
19 allegations against all kinds of people by this
20 family.
21 We're talking about the Brazil trip:
22 "And your position is that you've never told
23 any other witness that your mother wanted to go
24 to Brazil, but your brothers wanted to stay,
25 right?
26 "My brothers wanted to stay and be with
27 Michael, yes.
28 Didn't Gavin, in that police interview, say
1 he was scared at Neverland and wanted to leave?
2 He flip-flops all over the place, depending
3 on what he wants to accomplish.
4 Now, before we move further, the photo on
5 your left, that's Janet's booking photo, where she
6 says she was beaten up all over the place by J.C.
7 Penney guards. That's the booking photo.
8 Look at her face and look at her hair. And
9 you already know that all the booking documents
10 indicate there's no medical problem. There's no
11 injury. She doesn't need medical attention. And
12 Mary Holzer told you that Janet confided in her that
13 after she got released, she was beaten by David
14 before she went to the hospital. And of course they
15 had photos taken weeks later and blamed it all on
16 J.C. Penney and Tower Records' employees to get
17 money.
18 And remember some of the testimony about
19 what's been said about J.C. Penney? Janet told Azja
20 Pryor some white boys beat them up in the mall.
21 Janet told Mrs. Kennedy that black guys beat them up
22 in an alley.
23 You trust her?
24 "Q. You were investigated by the
25 Department of Children & Family Services in the
26 1990s when Gavin alleged you had abused him.
27 Remember that?
28 "Yes, I do.
1 "Okay. Did you have a good relationship
2 with the Department of Children & Family Services
3 at that time?
4 "Yes, I did."
5 So she confirms Gavin. How old could Gavin
6 have been? He was like a little kid. These kids
7 are being raised to make allegations.
8 Now, I'm not saying that a kid can't make a
9 true allegation. But put it all together. Look
10 what's going on. Allegations come easily and
11 quickly to authorities.
12 All right. Mr. Zonen talked about Janet's
13 conversations with Frank Tyson:
14 "Q. You say here, 'I know we're family,
15 Frank. Me, you, me, my kids are family. You,
16 Marie Nicole, my kids, Baby Rubba are family.
17 Michael, Marie Nicole, Frank Cascio, you, me,
18 are family, and my parents. That's all I got.
19 So that's why when these German people,' and
20 then it's inaudible. Do you see that?
21 "That's correct."
22 Now, the point I'm making is this: They had
23 decided Michael is their family. And Prosecutor
24 Zonen said to you yesterday, there was a year period
25 where there was no contact between Gavin and
26 Michael, and that's baloney. There were cards going
27 everywhere. Every member of the family is sending
28 cards calling him "Daddy." "We love you. We're
1 family."
2 They do this with everybody. They did it
3 with Chris Tucker. "You're our brother. We're your
4 family." This is one of their MOs. And before
5 Janet really starts telling you about her poverty,
6 she tells you you're her family.
7 Now, Mr. Sneddon, in his opening statement,
8 tried to neutralize that by saying this is an overly
9 affectionate family.
10 They're affectionate all right.
11 "Now, this conversation is taking place
12 after you say you escaped from Neverland with
13 Jesus, true?
14 "Correct.
15 "You are still calling Michael your family,
16 correct?
17 "That's correct.
18 If she had to escape false imprisonment at
19 Neverland, and if Michael is the leader of this big
20 scheme to abduct and kidnap, why is she still
21 calling him family?
22 What is her goal?
23 Her goal is to be with Michael. And all the
24 legal stuff, and all the talk with the police, all
25 of it follows her conclusion, "We're out. We're not
26 going to be part of his family anymore."
27 "How many times did you escape from
28 Neverland, Miss Arvizo?
1 "With Jesus, with Chris, and then the last
2 time, and that's the best I can remember."
3 Three escapes from Neverland. What does
4 that sound like to you?
5 And they always go back. And in the end,
6 they go home.
7 "In the J.C. Penney case, you waited till
8 after a criminal investigation was over to file
9 your civil claims, true?
10 Doesn't want to answer it.
11 She says, "I want an apology."
12 "Q. You wanted over 100,000, didn't you?
13 "A. I didn't get over 100,000.
14 "Q. You got 152,000 in the settlement,
15 Miss Arvizo, didn't you?
16 "A. In my hand? I did not get 150,000."
17 Now, look at these answers.
18 "The Witness: In my hand I received only
19 $32,000. That's it. In my hand. And that's my
20 best approximation.
21 "Miss Arvizo, what did Gavin get in his hand
22 from that settlement?
23 "A. I don't remember, because it's been
24 put away where it's to be untouched by me.
25 "What did Star get in his hand in that
26 settlement?
27 Still nothing.
28 "I don't know, because it's -- it's something
1 that's untouched by me. It's for them."
2 Do you think she really doesn't know the
3 amounts? She's under oath in this courtroom making
4 these statements.
5 "Q. The total was over 152,000 that your
6 family was given in a settlement, true?
7 "That you have to ask my civil attorneys.
8 And I think this statement may be correct.
9 "Q. During the time you had your
10 deposition taken in the J.C. Penney lawsuit --
11 "Yes.
12 "-- did you consider David to be an honest
13 person?
14 "No.
15 "Do you remember testifying under oath in
16 the J.C. Penney lawsuit that David is extremely
17 honest, he's too honest?
18 "A. If that's on there, then that's
19 correct. Whatever is on the deposition is
20 correct.
21 "Q. How many lies under oath do you think
22 you told in your depositions in the J.C. Penney
23 case?"
24 She was deposed twice.
25 "Like I said, I tried -- after David was
26 arrested, I went to the Rothstein office, and I
27 pointed out to them prior to a settlement
28 agreement that I would like to correct the
1 statements that were inaccurate, because finally
2 David was arrested. Finally we and my children
3 could speak. And Rothstein, including with Mary
4 Holzer, said, 'Don't worry. We'll take care of
5 it.' And they didn't, so I considered their firm
6 liars."
7 She's always blaming someone else.
8 "The lawyers are liars. The lawyers made me
9 do it."
10 Has she turned over the money? Has she gone
11 to J.C. Penney or Tower Records and said, "What we
12 did was wrong. We lied under oath. We collected
13 money that we are not entitled to. My injuries were
14 fake. I had Gavin lie under oath. I had Star lie
15 under oath. David lied under oath"? No.
16 Do you remember in the rebuttal video they
17 talk about gang signs, and she's acting very
18 spontaneously and she's laughing? And it's not a
19 rehearsed, memorized type of response. It's
20 spontaneous, and she's having fun.
21 "Q. So when you said about Gavin he was
22 doing gang signs, that was what he was doing,
23 he's -- he showed out to his friends on the west
24 side, was that all scripted?
25 "Everything. Everything was scripted."
26 Now, you've seen that video four times. Was
27 everything memorized, rehearsed, to the word? Was
28 she ever spontaneous? Did she ever seem to be
1 enjoying herself? Did she seem like she liked being
2 on camera? Remember she looked at it, and she said,
3 "Oh, my God, we're on camera," and she had a big
4 grin on her face?
5 And now it's part of some evil plot by
6 Michael Jackson. And yet everything they said, they
7 had said before, particularly to Brad Miller, when
8 she says she was talking honestly about Michael
9 Jackson.
10 Everybody's a liar but Janet Arvizo. Have
11 you noticed that? The social workers are liars.
12 The lawyers are liars. Everybody's a liar but her.
13 "Did you ever ask Azja Pryor for the keys to
14 Chris Tucker's car?
15 "No.
16 "To your knowledge, did Davellin ever do
17 that?
18 "No.
19 "Do you recall ever being in a call with
20 Davellin where you and Davellin asked Azja Pryor
21 for the keys to Chris Tucker's automobile?
22 "No."
23 Now Azja's a liar.
24 "Do you recall discussing going to Brazil
25 with Azja Pryor?
26 "Like I had told you, remember those
27 conversations that I would have and try to slip
28 something in? So at the end of the -- all of
1 these people could put this puzzle together as
2 to where me and my children were finally at.
3 "Do you recall telling Azja Pryor that you
4 were excited to go to Brazil?
5 "No.
6 "Do you recall inviting Azja Pryor to go
7 to Carnivale in Brazil with you?
8 "No.
9 Who do you trust based on what you saw on
10 this witness stand? Janet Arvizo or Azja Pryor?
11 "Did you ever tell Azja Pryor that your
12 family was being held against their will?
13 She says, "Yes."
14 "When was this?
15 "I think -- I think it was during the hotel
16 period. That's the best I can remember. I --
17 I tried to reach different people."
18 Azja Pryor told you that she never said
19 anything like that. She wanted to go to Brazil;
20 that she invited Azja to go to Carnivale and that
21 she was excited. And Azja was as honest as you can
22 be.
23 "And you specifically remember telling her
24 that you were being held against your will?
25 "Yes.
26 "Do you remember ever asking her to call the
27 police?
28 "No, that was another thing I slipped in.
1 And I was always hoping that these people would
2 call themselves. This way the call didn't come
3 from me."
4 What is that supposed to mean?
5 She's staying at Jay Jackson's. She's in
6 hotels. She's in shopping centers. You can call
7 9-1-1 at Neverland. She has a million different
8 places she can get a phone and call 9-1-1 if a crime
9 was being committed against she and her children.
10 The dentist's office, the salon, you name it.
11 Nothing.
12 "Q. Do you remember telling Azja Pryor
13 that you had learned that Michael Jackson was not
14 going on the Brazil trip?
15 "A. No.
16 "Do you remember ever telling Azja Pryor
17 that once you learned Michael Jackson was not
18 going on the Brazil trip, you didn't want to go?
19 "No.
20 "It's your testimony you never discussed the
21 Brazil trip at any time with Azja?
22 "I'm -- like I said to different people in
23 the midst of the conversation, I tried to slip
24 something in as to what was happening.
25 "Do you recall complaining to Azja Pryor
26 that Michael Jackson was making money on the
27 Maury Povich show and your family was getting
28 nothing?
1 "Never.
2 "Do you recall commenting to Miss Pryor that
3 a college fund was being set up for Gavin by
4 Michael Jackson?
5 "No.
6 "Do you remember telling Azja Pryor, 'What
7 good will a college fund do for my son? He may
8 not be alive in ten years'? Do you remember
9 saying that?
10 "No. All of that --
11 "And did you ever discuss the rebuttal
12 video with Azja Pryor?
13 "No."
14 All of that directly contradicted by Azja
15 Pryor, who, I repeat, was a very honest witness.
16 Are you going to believe Janet or are you
17 going to believe Azja? I think I know who you're
18 going to believe when you put all this stuff
19 together, ladies and gentlemen.
20 She is a complete liar and fabricator. She
21 is a con artist. She's conned people for years.
22 This is a great one:
23 "Miss Arvizo, did you ever tell anyone that
24 you were living in a stable with hay and horses
25 in Bakersfield?
26 "No.
27 "Ever say anything to that effect to
28 anyone?
1 "No.
2 "Did you ever hear or learn that you were
3 quoted as saying that?
4 "Yeah, I came to find out a lot of things.
5 "When did you find out that you were quoted
6 as saying that you and your family were so poor
7 you were living in a stable with hay in
8 Bakersfield?
9 "Just recently. I've never lived in
10 Bakersfield."
11 Did somebody make that up?
12 Remember, she said she was homeless to get
13 free lessons at the dance school for her kids.
14 She'll say anything. Absolutely anything.
15 "You claim you first learned about any
16 alleged molestation in September of 2003,
17 correct?
18 "A. I don't understand what he's saying,
19 but I was becoming aware of things through
20 Gavin and Star little by little.
21 "Q. You claim that you learned about any
22 alleged molestation in September of 2003 from
23 Prosecutor Sneddon, Sheriff Klapakis and Sheriff
24 Robel, right?
25 "Yes."
26 Then my question to you is, why did they go
27 to Larry Feldman? Why?
28 Moving along:
1 "Okay. Did you learn at some point about
2 some fund-raisers that went on at The Laugh
3 Factory for the benefit of Gavin?
4 "A. I came to find out everything
5 afterwards.
6 "Q. Did you know those fund-raisers were
7 going on when they actually happened?
8 "A. I don't think so. We're talking five
9 years ago."
10 Do you really think, based on everything you
11 know about Janet Arvizo, that she didn't know
12 fund-raisers were going on?
13 This is under oath in front of you. Put it
14 all together.
15 "Q. So you're not sure whether you knew
16 they were even going when they happened, right?
17 "No, I would find out afterwards.
18 "Now, were you in touch with Jamie Masada at
19 this point in time?
20 "Just a little bit."
21 They're trying to raise money for her son's
22 illness. They're going everywhere they can to raise
23 money. Do you think she doesn't know?
24 "Q. Were you ever standing in the background
25 during a phone call that Gavin made to Jay Leno?
26 "A. No.
27 "Have you ever spoken to Jay Leno?
28 "I've never spoken to Jay Leno.
1 "Were you aware of Gavin making any attempt
2 to contact celebrities by phone?
3 "No."
4 Do you believe that for a second?
5 Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, it only takes
6 one lie under oath to throw this case out of court
7 by you. Just one.
8 You can't count the number of lies under
9 oath by all of the Arvizo witnesses. You can't
10 count them. They lie directly. They lie to your
11 face. They lie under oath. They exaggerate. They
12 give run-around answers to try to avoid the
13 question. How many does it take to let you know
14 this case is a fraud?
15 They are trying to take advantage of Michael
16 Jackson. They are trying to profit from Michael
17 Jackson. They think they've pulled it off. They're
18 just waiting for one thing, and that is your
19 verdict.
20 At this point, I'd like to talk to you a
21 little bit about some jury instructions, some of the
22 instructions that were read to you yesterday.
23 Now, we've talked about reasonable doubt.
24 You've heard me mention that a lot. And as I have
25 been saying throughout my closing argument, if you
26 have a reasonable doubt about the Arvizos, the case
27 is over, because the whole case hinges on them.
28 They have come together. They have compared
1 notes. They have made up stories. They've lied
2 under oath, like they've done for years, and they've
3 been caught at it. You have caught them at it.
4 The instruction reads as follows:
5 "A defendant in a criminal action is
6 presumed to be innocent until the contrary is
7 proved. And in a case of reasonable doubt whether
8 his guilt is satisfactorily shown, he is entitled to
9 a verdict of not guilty. This presumption places
10 upon the People the burden of proving him guilty
11 beyond a reasonable doubt."
12 Why the standard of proof called "reasonable
13 doubt"? Why?
14 Many legal systems around the world don't
15 have it. Many legal systems around the world don't
16 use juries. They use judges. One, two, three, or
17 more. But our country has a philosophy, and that is
18 we cannot convict people who are innocent. We
19 cannot run the risk, because what happens to them is
20 so harmful, so brutal, so devastating.
21 And what they're trying to do to Michael
22 Jackson is so harmful, so brutal, so potentially
23 devastating to him, that we have a very high
24 standard. It's higher than you find in civil cases
25 where you have disputes over money or over property.
26 If you have any reasonable doubt about this
27 case, about the testimony, about the double-talk,
28 the lies, about their past, about their motives,
1 it's over. You must acquit Michael Jackson to
2 follow the law. It's that strict.
3 And you know something? Our system still
4 isn't perfect. You still have examples where, years
5 later, DNA exonerates people who were convicted.
6 They've added up like 130 people the last ten years
7 who were actually convicted, by juries who meant
8 well, wrongfully, because DNA exonerated them.
9 But nevertheless, we have to have a system.
10 It's the best system in the world. It can't be
11 perfect, because human beings aren't perfect. But
12 it's the best system in the world.
13 And ladies and gentlemen, I'm begging you to
14 honor that principle. Honor that principle of proof
15 beyond a reasonable doubt. He must be acquitted
16 under that standard, with all the problems and
17 falsehoods and issues that I have addressed.
18 They can't overcome them. They can
19 exaggerate. They can dirty up Michael's background.
20 They can fling dirt everywhere. They can expose the
21 fact that he's a human being who has had his
22 problems. They can do whatever they want. But they
23 can't prove this case beyond a reasonable doubt, and
24 they never should have brought it to begin with once
25 they learned who the Arvizos were.
26 These are what we call burdens of proof in
27 our legal system.
28 In a civil case, which is a dispute over
1 money or property, if one side proves by a
2 preponderance of the evidence, that's the standard,
3 that they should prevail, and it's often described
4 in very simple terms. If you have a scale of
5 justice and one side is stronger, is heavier, that
6 side wins. It's called a mere preponderance of
7 evidence.
8 That's enough to bankrupt somebody. That's
9 enough to take away their business. That's enough
10 to leave them penniless. But it's not enough to
11 convict of a crime.
12 We have a higher standard called clear and
13 convincing evidence.
14 I'll give you an example: In some custody
15 disputes, you can take a child away from a parent
16 if you prove, by clear and convincing evidence, that
17 that parent should not have custody, that they have
18 not met the standards our legal system requires for
19 parenting.
20 Clear and convincing evidence alone is not
21 enough to convict in our system.
22 And let me ask you this: Do you think
23 you've seen clear and convincing evidence that the
24 Arvizos are truthful? Are believable? Are honest?
25 Are honorable? Don't have financial motives in this
26 case? Are to be believed and trusted?
27 No. They can't even meet that standard, let
28 alone the highest in our legal system, which is
1 beyond a reasonable doubt. They're not even close.
2 The case shouldn't have been brought.
3 This is just an illustrative aid to further
4 explain reasonable doubt to you and what a high
5 standard it is. If you think somebody may be
6 guilty, it's not enough. If you think perhaps
7 they're guilty, it's not enough. If you suspect
8 they might be guilty, it's not enough. Possibly
9 guilty is not enough. Probably guilty, not enough.
10 Guilty likely, not enough. Guilt highly likely, not
11 enough. It's got to be guilty beyond any reasonable
12 doubt.
13 And ladies and gentlemen, when you get in
14 the jury room, ask yourselves, "Do we have any
15 reasonable doubts about this family and this case?"
16 Any. All it takes is one.
17 The prosecutor has talked to you about
18 circumstantial evidence, okay? There's what is
19 called direct evidence, someone actually watches
20 something. And there's circumstantial evidence,
21 where you're to put the circumstances together and
22 decide what you can infer from the circumstances.
23 Of course, I'm coming to you and saying the
24 same thing. Look at the circumstances of the
25 Arvizos and their past history and their lies and
26 their motives, and I'm saying put those
27 circumstances together to find a reasonable doubt in
28 this case.
1 So what does the instruction say? "A
2 finding of guilt as to any crime may not be based on
3 circumstantial evidence unless the proved
4 circumstances are not only, one, consistent with the
5 theory that the defendant is guilty of the crime,
6 but, two, cannot be reconciled with any other
7 rational conclusion."
8 Can any of you imagine, within reason, the
9 Arvizos doing what I've told you they're trying to
10 do here? Does it seem rational to you? Does it
11 seem realistic? Is it plausible? Is it likely?
12 Of course it is.
13 Would it be rational to assume, based on all
14 you've heard, that this is a scam by them, and that
15 they are, in fact, con artists, actors and liars?
16 The answer is yes. And if you agree with what I
17 just told you, out the door.
18 "If the circumstantial evidence as to any
19 particular count permits two reasonable
20 interpretations, one of which points to the
21 defendant's guilt and the other to his innocence,
22 you must adopt that interpretation that points to
23 the defendant's innocence and reject that
24 interpretation that points to his guilt."
25 This all works in tandem with the proof
26 beyond a reasonable doubt standard. It all works in
27 tandem with the proof beyond a reasonable doubt
28 objective of our system that we protect freedom and
1 liberty and reputation more than we protect money,
2 more than we protect property. It's a strict system
3 of values built into the system, and you must, under
4 this legal standard, throw this case where it
5 belongs: Out the door.
6 Now, you were instructed that these alleged
7 crimes by Michael Jackson require that they prove
8 what is called specific intent. In plain language,
9 that he specifically intended to commit certain
10 crimes. I'm going to show you some conspiracy
11 instructions where he has to specifically intend,
12 and they must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that
13 he specifically intended, one, to enter into a
14 conspiracy agreement, and, two, to commit false
15 imprisonment, child abduction or extortion on the
16 Arvizos. Okay? So that's what this idea of
17 specific intent essentially means.
18 This is a similar instruction to the ones
19 you just saw: "You may not find the defendant
20 guilty of the crimes charged unless the proved
21 circumstances are not only, one, consistent with the
22 theory that the defendant had the required specific
23 intent or mental state, but, two, cannot be
24 reconciled with any other rational conclusion."
25 It's a protective mechanism to protect our
26 freedom and our liberty and our reputation from
27 false claims.
28 You've been instructed by Judge Melville.
1 You must follow this to the T. You cannot run
2 roughshod over these instructions. You cannot treat
3 them lightly. If you have another rational
4 explanation for what these people are doing based on
5 their past and their behavior, it's out, all of it.
6 Michael Jackson goes home - where he belongs. Not
7 here.
8 "Evidence as to any specific intent or
9 mental state, if it permits two reasonable
10 interpretations, one of which points to the
11 existence of a specific intent or mental state and
12 the other to its absence, you must adopt that
13 interpretation which points to its absence."
14 And as I said to you yesterday, show me any
15 evidence anywhere that Michael Jackson wanted to be
16 in a conspiracy with other alleged felons, none of
17 whom have been charged. None. With all they tell
18 you about Schaffel, Konitzer, Dieter, Geragos,
19 whatever it is, have any of them been charged with
20 anything? Even a misdemeanor? If not, why did they
21 bring this case against him? Why? Where is the
22 justice? Where is the fairness? Where is it?
23 With these instructions that you're bound to
24 follow, with the instruction that you have another
25 rational explanation, another rational conclusion as
26 to why someone acted a certain way that goes against
27 the concept of guilt, the concept of convicting
28 someone of a crime, with these instructions, which
1 they know about - they know about them - why did
2 they bring this case against Michael Jackson?
3 Because he's a mega celebrity, and they hope
4 they can get away with it. They only have one
5 obstacle left: You. They're hoping you won't
6 follow these instructions, you won't understand
7 these instructions, they won't have any meaning in
8 the jury room, you just won't get it. I don't know
9 what they're thinking.
10 How, with these instructions on the table,
11 in your hands -- you've already gotten packets of
12 them. How, if you look at these carefully and look
13 at this evidence, can you convict Michael Jackson of
14 anything?
15 Ladies and gentlemen, you can't. You just
16 can't. The witnesses are preposterous. The perjury
17 is everywhere. The claims are preposterous. None
18 of it works. The only thing they have left is
19 throwing dirt all over the place to see if something
20 sticks.
21 Girlie magazines. He's had problems in his
22 personal life. He's been immature, and naive,
23 childlike. But remember, their basic claims are
24 that he's akin to a monster, that he would take a
25 cancer-stricken child and look at that person as a
26 target and ply him with alcohol so he can molest
27 him.
28 From what you've seen about Michael Jackson
1 in this trial, does that make sense? If you look
2 deep into your heart, do you think it's even
3 remotely possible that Michael Jackson is
4 constructed that way, is evil in that particular
5 way? Has no conscience? Has no feeling for
6 children? Has no idealism? Isn't childlike? He's
7 really just -- it's all -- Neverland's a ruse for
8 criminal activity? Does what you've seen in this
9 trial reflect that? Is it even possible?
10 It's not. It really is not.
11 And no matter what Mr. Zonen throws around
12 the courtroom, you know what I'm saying is true.
13 And I'm sure it will be a real topic of discussion
14 in the jury room. What is Neverland? Why the
15 music? Why the Disney-like environment? Why the
16 animals? Why do children come from the inner city?
17 Why do sick children come by bus? What goes on?
18 What are his goals? What did he want to accomplish?
19 Is it all just a lure for criminal conduct, a
20 veneer, a big fantasy to lure people in because he's
21 a monster?
22 No. Not even close.
23 Might be a good time to stop, Your Honor.
24 Is that all right?
25 THE COURT: All right. We'll a break.
26 (Recess taken.)
27 THE COURT: Mr. Mesereau?
28 MR. MESEREAU: Thank you, Your Honor.
1 Ladies and gentlemen, I have two more
2 instructions to show you. I can't show you every
3 one, they're pretty voluminous, but I'd like you to
4 just give careful consideration to these particular
5 instructions, particularly this "Witness Willfully
6 False" instruction:
7 It says, "A witness who is willfully false
8 in one material part of his or her testimony is to
9 be distrusted in others. You may reject the whole
10 testimony of a witness who willfully has testified
11 falsely as to a material point unless, from all the
12 evidence, you believe the probability of truth
13 favors his or her testimony in other particulars."
14 And when you go into the jury room and talk
15 about the Arvizos, please give careful consideration
16 to this instruction.
17 This is the last one I'm going to point out:
18 It says, "Association alone does not prove
19 membership in a conspiracy. Evidence that a person
20 was in the company of, or associated with, one or
21 more other persons alleged or proved to have been
22 members of a conspiracy is not, in itself,
23 sufficient to prove that person was a member of the
24 alleged conspiracy."
25 So when the prosecutor gets up and tries to
26 tell you that somehow knowing Marc Schaffel or
27 knowing Konitzer or Dieter is proof that Michael
28 Jackson engineered -- remember, they're saying he
1 engineered a criminal conspiracy as a response to
2 the Bashir documentary. If they try and suggest
3 that through documents showing people are in
4 business together, or associated together, or might
5 be seen together, that's not proof.
6 They have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt
7 that Michael Jackson, one, specifically intended to
8 form an agreement to conspire, and, two, wanted to
9 falsely prison, abduct kids, or commit extortion.
10 And it's nonsense.
11 Now, ladies and gentlemen, the prosecution
12 claims that Mr. Jackson had a response to the Bashir
13 documentary, and the response was to commit crimes.
14 And the prosecutor wants you to think that after
15 February 20th, through all those interviews, that
16 somehow molestation began. And now I want to show
17 you what was available at the time.
18 MR. SANGER: "Input 4," please, Your Honor.
19 (Whereupon, portions of DVDs, People's
20 Exhibit 2 and Defendant's Exhibits 5000-A, B and C,
21 were played for the Court and jury.)
22 MR. MESEREAU: Ladies and gentlemen, this
23 has been a nightmare for Mr. Jackson. He has been
24 lax with his money. He has let the wrong people
25 sometimes associate around him. He was naive to
26 allow the Arvizos anywhere near him. But under the
27 law and the facts in this courtroom, you must return
28 a verdict of not guilty on all counts. It's the
1 only right verdict.
2 Thank you.
3 THE COURT: Thank you, Mr. Mesereau.