First in Long Line of Stars Testify for Jackson

Michael Jackson Forum

Culkin denies Jackson molestation

http://images.usatoday.com/news/_photos/2005/05/11/culkin-inside.jpg
Macaulay Culkin, center, leaves the courthouse after testifying in the Michael Jackson trial.
Eric Neitzel, Getty Images

SANTA MARIA, Calif. — Actor Macaulay Culkin testified in Michael Jackson's defense Wednesday that the "childlike" singer empathized with him when he was a child star and didn't molest him when they shared a bed.

Culkin, 24, appeared at Jackson's felony trial to contradict testimony from two former workers at the defendant's Neverland Valley Ranch that they had seen Jackson fondling the star of the Home Alone movies in 1991.

Culkin said that "I've fallen asleep in the same bed as him ... a handful of times" at Neverland between the ages of 10 and 14. He said that at other times he joined his younger brother Kieran and other children with Jackson in bed. But Jackson did nothing inappropriate with him or other children, he said.

Jackson, 46, faces 10 felony charges of molesting a 13-year-old boy at Neverland in 2003 and conspiring to hold the child and his family captive to coerce them into TV interviews saying he did nothing wrong. Jackson says he's innocent.

Under a California law in child-molestation cases that allows evidence of past misconduct that was never charged, eight prosecution witnesses testified in April that Jackson molested five boys during the 1990s.

Culkin was the third defense witness to testify he was not molested as a boy.

Former Neverland chef Phillip LeMarque said that early one morning he was delivering french fries to Jackson at Neverland's arcade and saw Jackson with one hand on Culkin's waist and the other in the child's shorts. "I almost dropped the french fries," he said.

Former Neverland housemaid Adrian McManus testified she saw Jackson kiss Culkin on the cheek while his hand was on the boy's buttocks.

Jackson's lawyer Tom Mesereau asked Culkin what he thought of the allegations.

"I think they're absolutely ridiculous," he said.

Culkin said his father encountered him and Jackson in bed together at least once and said nothing about it.

"He really didn't seem to have a problem with it," Culkin said.

'He understood me'

Culkin said Jackson continues to be "a very good friend." He said they met after Jackson "called me out of the blue" after seeing the 1990 hit Home Alone. Jackson said he "understood what was happening" to the star and "wanted to get together," Culkin recalled.

Jackson himself had been a child star with his family musical act, the Jackson Five. Culkin said Jackson showed that "he understood me" and how sudden success had changed his life.

"One day I'm just a normal kid who was an actor, and the next day people are hiding under bushes trying to take your picture," Culkin said. "(Jackson) said, 'I get it — I've been there.' "

Culkin said he resented that prosecutors had presented evidence involving him without asking him for his views.

Co-prosecutor Ron Zonen asked Culkin if he was aware that authorities attempted to interview him in 1993 and 2003 and were turned down by "your representatives." Culkin said he didn't know that.

Zonen suggested that Jackson could have molested Culkin while the boy was sleeping.

"I find that unlikely," Culkin said. Culkin told Mesereau that Jackson "was very childlike" and enjoyed playing video games with children in Neverland's arcade. "He wasn't as good as us, usually," Culkin said. Zonen asked if Jackson's possession of sexually explicit books and magazines that police seized at Neverland in 2003 was consistent with being childlike.

"When I was 12 or 13 years old, I had a couple of Playboys under my bed," Culkin said. What about one book picturing male-and-male sex? "I don't think there's anything wrong with having those things, whether it's childlike or not," Culkin said.

Jury sees video outtakes

Culkin was not questioned about the court hearing he faces in Oklahoma City on June 8 on two misdemeanor drug charges. He was arrested in September as a passenger in a car where police alleged they found a half-ounce of marijuana and several tablets of the prescription drug Xanax.

Also Wednesday, the defense played for the jury nearly three hours of video shot by Jackson's personal videographer as British journalist Martin Bashir interviewed him for the TV documentary Living With Michael Jackson. That 2003 broadcast showed Jackson holding hands with the alleged victim and saying he shares his bed with children.

The hours of "outtakes" include footage of Jackson explaining his love for children and proposal for a worldwide "children's day."

Defense lawyers said the tape would give jurors "context" for Jackson's remarks about sharing his bed. But it also enabled Jackson, in effect, to testify in the case without submitting to cross-examination by the prosecution.

"If I were in Tom Mesereau's position, I would feel very satisfied that 80 to 90% of what I want to get across to the jury is coming across in this outtake video," said Craig Smith, a former Santa Barbara County prosecutor.

- By Martin Kasindorf, USA TODAY

Teh prosecution had better have some ace up it's sleave. If the rest of the defnse's testimonies are like this, the prosecution doesn't have a chance.

They don't have a chance at all. They're time is over now, and the defense is presenting it's case. From here, it's simply down hill for the prosecution (actually, it was downhill after about day 2 of their case...). Culkin's testimony definitely tipped the scales more than they would have wished.

Before the trial I kept asking myself, why was the prosecutor conducting another raid at Mike’s ranch about a month before jury selection was due? I said it before. After seeing Sneddon’s case, he must have been worried about how weak a case it was.

Anyway, serves Sned right for bringing in a bunch of characters instead of a bunch of witnesses. How do you put someone on the stand that says Mike molested Culkin fully well knowing that Culkin has publicly denied anything like that for years? Then he put on a bunch of other witnesses saying they saw him molesting boys only to have those boys come into court and say it never happened while the very witnesses were found to be lying in prior civil proceedings.

Sneddon must be an idiot. That or he’s so blinded by his enmity towards MJ that he can’t see straight. Anything must sound like supporting facts to him, no matter how ridiculous some assertions may be and he looks like he’s desperate to settle a grudge. I find it hard to believe that Mike can molest so many children in their sleep and all of the sleeping right through it never feeling a thing. I don’t know maybe that glove he wears is magic or something.

On the flip side, MJ needs therapy. If he doesn’t understands this by now, then he will never get the picture that what he’s doing is inappropriate even if it’s 100% innocent. I have a hard time understanding parents that have let their children sleep with Mike in the first place. Anyone besides a celebrity of Mike’s status, they wouldn’t have done it. I think they were expecting something in return.

Anyway, there is simply too much reasonable doubt for a sensible jury to convict MJ but we’ve seen stranger things happen.

I wonder how many parents will be willing to let their kids sleep with him after the trial has finished and he's back in the free world. You'd think no one would let their kids near him, but you know there's going to be some people who are so blinded by fame that he'll still have kids everywhere.

That's what I find so sad about the way the prosecution has handled this trial. Michael is going to get off scott free and he'll just go back to living his life. He won't be forced to have counselling, or to stay away from children, or anything that a "normal" accused peadophile would be forced to do.

He's just going to go straight back to be ing Wacko Jacko.