57th Session - Testimony from Jay Leno and Chris Tucker - The Accuser’s Mother Admits to Fraud

Today, the defense attorneys called two famous comedians, Jay Leno and Chris Tucker, to the witness stand so that each could speak about their personal experiences with the accuser, Michael Jackson’s 13-year-old accuser. Although Jay Leno’s testimony in the witness stand did not end up harming the prosecution team the way the defense attorneys had expected, it did sometimes make the people in the courtroom laugh. Jay Leno, comedian and host of the television program "Tonight Show," testified as the first witness today. He said that the accuser had never asked him for money and that he had never sent money to his family. When he was asked about a phone message the accuser had left for him from the hospital in 2000, he said that he had noticed something unusual in that message. " The phone message I received said: _ I’m a huge fan. You’re the best. _ This message was too emotional coming from a 12-year-old boy. And for a comedian in his fifties. (referring to himself) I’m not Batman. This seemed a bit strange to me. Do you understand what I mean? " Leno continued by saying that he had asked Louise Palanker (the wife of a comedian who had previously appeared in court) about it and she had told him: " What story is behind this case? These can’t be words from a 12-year-old boy. It seems more like he’s reading from a script. " Defense attorney Thomas Mesereau asked him whether he meant that someone was guiding the accuser on what to say. Leno answered no. Previously, Leno had told police investigators in an interview that he felt someone might have been dictating the accuser’s statements to him. He also said that the accuser was looking for money. Leno added that Palanker had assured him that there was nothing unusual and that the accuser first writes down whatever he wants to say. Leno said he had never spoken to the accuser’s mother face to face and that the boy had not contacted him again. Before this, Thomas Mesereau had announced in court that Leno had said he could hear the accuser’s mother’s voice in the background of the accuser’s speech. But in the witness stand, Leno said that maybe the sound he heard was only the voice of a nurse. At that time, the accuser was hospitalized. Before leaving the stand, Leno leaned forward and spoke into his microphone: " We have Renee ZellWeger on our show tonight. " Leno left the witness stand amid laughter from those present. Tucker, the other witness today, said that he had first met the accuser, Michael Jackson’s 13-year-old accuser—who at the time was suffering from cancer—at a charity club in Los Angeles. He said that after the charity club’s work was finished, the accuser told him that they had not collected enough money during that time. Therefore, Tucker had helped them with $1,500, and by building a close relationship with the accuser and his sister and brother, he took them to amusement parks and stores, and he also invited them to his home three times. When Mesereau asked him whether he thought they wanted the money for the expenses of the accuser’s treatment, Tucker replied, " I hoped it was that way. " Mary Holzer, the attorney’s assistant who in 1999 handled the family of the accuser in the J.C. Penney case, presented the most notable defense in the witness stand. She said that in 1999, during the aforementioned case, she had met the accuser’s mother. [In 1999, a Toys R Us security officer got into a confrontation with the family of the accuser over clothes they had stolen from the store. In the J.C. Penney case, the accuser’s mother accused the security officer of sexually abusing her during the scuffle. In the end, the store’s managers paid the accuser’s mother $152,000 in order to prevent negative publicity against them and persuaded her to drop her lawsuit.] In previous court sessions, the prosecution, in order to support the accuser’s mother’s claims about her involvement with J.C. Penney in 1999, displayed to the jury photos that had been taken from the accuser’s mother’s body that year. These photos show signs of injuries and bruises on the accuser’s mother’s face, hands, and legs. Thomas Mesereau, senior attorney for Michael Jackson, said that the bruises seen in the photos were related to confrontations she had had earlier that year before separating from her husband. In this regard, Thomas Mesereau asked Holzer: " What did she (the accuser’s mother) tell you about these photos? " " She told me that these bruises were caused on her body by her husband after the confrontation with J.C. Penney at the store.... It scared me. When your client admits to fraud, it scares you. " She said that when the accuser’s mother had warned her eight or nine times that she should not tell anyone anything about this matter, she had been terrified. According to Holzer, the accuser’s mother had told her that one of her husband’s relatives was active in a Mexican mafia gang, and if he found out that Holzer knew something about this, he would kill Holzer and her nine-year-old daughter. " She said she was worried about me and my daughter and didn’t want anything bad to happen to us. Because she considered me her close friend. " Mesereau asked: " Did you also consider her your close friend? " Holzer replied: " No, absolutely not. I was just doing my job. " The accuser’s mother had previously rejected a story about a mafia gang and had called Holzer a Michael Jackson fan. Holzer said in the witness stand that she had taken the accuser’s family to "again and again" different places because they didn’t have a car at their disposal. She also spoke about the sudden, insane behavior of the accuser’s mother in the parking lot of a clinic: " She threw herself on the ground and started kicking and screaming. She said the doctors and nurses were evil and that they all wanted to hurt her. " Holzer added that the accuser’s mother had revealed to her that she was teaching her children how to behave during the tests, and she had even enrolled her children in acting classes for that purpose. " She wanted them to become good actors so she could teach them what to say and how to behave. " The defense attorneys have claimed that the accuser’s mother made her children lie and come up with fake stories in order to achieve her financial goals. Holzer, in response to a question from prosecutor Ron Zonen—who asked why, despite knowing about the Mexican mafia gang and the accuser’s mother’s fraud against others, she still helped her and took her to a lawyer a few years later to separate from her husband—said she felt sorry for the accuser’s mother. Anthony Ranieri, the attorney for the lawsuit, also testified in the witness stand that during more than twenty sessions in which he had interviewed the accuser’s mother about her involvement with J.C. Penney, she had not said anything about sexual abuse by Penny. Nine-year-old Prudence Brando, Marlon Brando’s granddaughter, was also among today’s witnesses. The girl, who was nine years old, had lived with the accuser and his brother in Neverland. She said that because of her mother-in-law’s and the accuser’s brother’s behavior, they intentionally hit their spinning tops back and forth and threw candy from above a platform onto other people. " They were doing stupid things. " Tucker will be the 50th and final witness for the defense tomorrow, and it is expected that the defense attorneys will also finish their work tomorrow. The defense attorneys have also announced that they do not intend to call Michael Jackson to the witness stand. Source: Santa Maria Times / Associated Press / CNN