Thomas Mesereau: Closing Arguments of the Michael Jackson Defense - Transcript
Date 2005/6/8 5:06:00 | Topic: Michael Jackson in the News
| Thomas Mesereau: Closing Arguments of the Michael Jackson Defense
(Complete Court Transcript)
Wednesday, 08 June 2005
Mr Thomas A. Mesereau's Closing Statement to the court and jury in defense of Michael Jackson on Thursday, June 2, 2005:
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 conspir
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