Jacko, His Rise and Fall: The Social and Sexual History of Michael Jackson (107 page)

Michael's critics suggested that both Jordie and Gavin represented a type,
in that each had dark eyes, dark skin, short dark hair, and what was called a
"pixieish look." Perhaps Sneddon was indeed hoping to prove that Michael
had a type, although the dark looks of Gavin and Jordie wouldn't account for
the blond-haired Home Alone allure of Macaulay Culkin.

The most crucial day was March 10 when the jury got a look at Gavin
Arvizo for the first time. All courtroom observers agreed that the case against
Michael would hinge on this teenager's testimony. At the time of his court
appearance, Gavin was 15 years old.

Astonishingly, the defendant himself did not show up on this crucial day,
as noted by Judge Melville who took the bench at 8:35 a.m.

Michael's attorney, Tom Mesereau, explained that he was in Cottage
Hospital in Santa Ynez being treated for a serious back injury. Melville came
down harshly. "I'm going to issue a warrant for his arrest. I'm forfeiting the
bail."

Michael got the message loud and clear. His motorcade came screaming
up to the courtyard. Getting out, Michael shuffled in slowly, wearing designer pajamas. Seated in the courtroom in these pajamas, he had to face Gavin
accusing him of taking him to bed. Without emotion he sat rigidly, listening to
Gavin claim that Michael had told him it was necessary to masturbate or else
he "might rape a girl."

As Gavin sat across from Michael, the boy was being carefully screened
by the jury. With his closely cropped hair, he looked older, bolder, and
stronger than in previous pictures. In all, he cut a sympathetic figure and had
a pleasing demeanor.

He stared straight at Michael as he made his charges, explaining that "I
was kind of hypnotized by Michael and Neverland when we met in 2000."

Michael set ramrod straight as he stared back at the teen. Gavin testified
that on his first night at Neverland he was invited to sleep in Michael's bedroom with both Michael and Frank Cascio.

He testified that Cascio, now calling himself "Frank Tyson," surfed
the web for porn that featured women between the ages of 15 and 25. Gavin
testified that Michael masturbated him and tried to get him to touch his genitals. "He grabbed my hand but I pulled my hand away because I didn't want
to do it," Gavin claimed.

Adult materials found at Neverland included some 75 magazines of
straight porn, as well as four gay-themed books. Some of
these publications had the fingerprints of the two Arvizo
brothers on them, both Star and Gavin. Both boys
claimed that Michael showed them these adult materials,
alleging it was for the purpose of lowering inhibitions to
sexual behavior, a charge Michael denied, but not on the
stand.

MJ arriving at
his trial in pajamas

Allegedly, Michael showed the boys pictures of topless women while asking, "Got milk?" He was also said
to have leaned in and whispered to Prince Michael II,
who was sleeping nearby, "Prince, you're missing some
pussy."

Gavin also charged that Michael not only showed
him porn, but got him intoxicated on wine as a prelude to
seduction.

During police investigation into the case, Gavin had
initially claimed that he'd been molested "five to seven
times." But on the witness stand, he could only describe
in detail two occasions where he claimed that the pop
star had molested him.

Under cross-examination, he grew argumentative with the defense, especially when he was painted as a juvenile delinquent with behavioral problems,
who had been schooled by his mother to lie under oath for financial gain and
to pester celebrities for money. The jury seemed to waiver between sympathy
for Gavin as a cancer victim and exasperation at the venality of the entire
Arvizo clan.

His sister, Davellin, 18, had stubbornly denied that Gavin had disciplinary
trouble at his school. Yet nine teachers, according to school records, claimed
he was a "classroom nightmare," citing such offenses as fighting, disrupting
class, refusing to obey teachers' orders, and being defiant. Gavin did admit
that he often misbehaved in class and never did his homework.

Gavin was forced to admit that he had twice told a school official that the
King of Pop never molested him. Wincing, Gavin was forced to recount a conversation he'd had with Dean Jeffrey Alpert at his school in the spring of 2003.
"I told Dean Alpert he didn't do anything to me," Gavin admitted.

In another coup for the defense, the boy admitted that many of the glowing things the Arvizos had said about Michael in a 90-minute rebuttal video,
filmed on February 19, 2003, were true. Then both Star and his sister claimed
that the family was coerced into making the rebuttal video. News accounts
carried on March 15 said that Gavin "lost his halo" in court.

In rebuttal, Gavin claimed that "I didn't spill my guts" to the dean because
"I feared cruel taunts from my classmates if word got out."

Under questioning by Sneddon, Gavin claimed that after the Bashir documentary was aired, showing him holding hands with and nuzzling the pop
star, he was "mercilessly ridiculed by schoolmates. Kids would laugh at me
and say, `That's the kid who got raped by Michael Jackson."' According to
testimony, Gavin was repeatedly called "a faggot" by his classmates.

Mesereau was successful in getting Gavin to acknowledge that he and his
family came and went at their leisure from Neverland, refuting his mother's
previous claims that they had been held at the ranch against their will.

After 13 hours on the stand, Gavin was asked how he felt about Michael
today. "I don't really like him anymore. I don't think he's deserving of the
respect I was giving him as the coolest guy in the world."

The prosecutor, Sneddon, attacked Mesereau in his defense of Michael,
calling it "a scorched-earth, take-no-prisoners approach." Sneddon alleged
that Mesereau was particularly caustic in his cross-examination of Gavin. "He
left the boy bewildered and stammering contradictions over three days of testimony. Mr. Mesereau was as abusive, as mean, as obnoxious as you could be
to a child witness," Sneddon told the judge. "Victims don't want to show up
because they don't want to go through what the accuser experienced."

After Gavin's testimony, Michael made a rare appearance on the Rev. Jesse Jackson's Sunday TV show. The star claimed that he was a victim of
conspiracy "just like other black luminaries," citing Nelson Mandela as an
example. He noted that some of the press had noticed that he was crying when
hearing Gavin's testimony about child molestation. "I was in a great deal of
pain," Michael said. "I was coming out of the shower and I fell and all my
body weight, I'm pretty fragile, all my body weight fell against my rib cage."
It was physical pain, not emotional pain, that caused him to tear, he claimed.

In April of 2005, in the midst of the trial, Michael managed to attend the
funeral of attorney Johnnie Cochran Jr.

Michael joined O.J. Simpson, along with other celebrities who included
the Rev. Jackson, in paying tribute to the controversial lawyer. It is not known
what words O.J. Simpson and Michael exchanged with each other, but both
Michael and O.J. could thank Cochran for extricating them from sticky mess-
es-O.J. for an alleged double murder, and Michael for getting Jordie
Chandler and that earlier issue about child molestation off his back. Cochran
died on March 29, 2005, at his home in Los Angeles, where he'd been suffering from an inoperable brain tumor.

The Rev. Calvin Butts, pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in
Harlem, referred to Cochran "a great warrior for justice." In a dissenting
voice, writer Paul Stefani in 2006 said, "I guess he was all that if you call helping a wife murderer and a child molester beat the rap."

Back at the trial, Davellin Arvizo testified that she saw Michael kissing
her brother on the cheek and head while her family lived at Neverland during
February and March of 2003. "When I was in his bedroom one time, he had
his arm around Gavin and they were hugging over and over, and kissing over
and over," she charged.

Gavin's younger brother, Star, was also called to the witness stand. While
on the stand jurors learned that Michael had nicknamed him "Blowhead." Star
told the court that on two occasions he'd seen Michael lying on his bed at
Neverland, groping Gavin with his free hand while Michael played with himself. On yet another occasion, Star claimed that he and Gavin were on
Michael's bed watching TV when Michael walked in with a full erection. "It's
natural," Michael was alleged to have told the two brothers.

At one point, Star claimed, Michael grabbed the mannequin of a little girl
and pretended to hump her in front of the brothers.

Star indicated that when he saw Michael fondling Gavin, both his brother
and Michael were unaware of his presence. "I saw directly into the bedroom,
and my brother was on top of the covers," Star claimed. "I saw Michael's left
hand in my brother's underwears and his right hand in his underwears." He
said he saw the alleged molestation as he climbed a stairwell leading to the
pop star's bedroom.

Prosecutors bolstered Star's account by proving that the boy would have
had a line of sight to Michael's bed from the top of the stairs.

On the stand, Star also testified that Michael had shown Gavin and him
copies of such porn as Barely Legal and Juicy, Ripe and Ready.

When Mesereau cross-examined Star, the attorney scored points by
revealing that the magazine, Barely Legal, seized in a raid on Neverland, was
actually published in August of 2003, months after Michael allegedly had
"shown" it to Gavin and Star. The teen also couldn't explain why the door to
Michael's bedroom had been left unlocked or why no alarm had been triggered by his secret approach. Previously he had claimed that there was a system of keypad locks and a warning bell in the hallway leading to this very private master bedroom.

Star testified that for amusement Michael, acting like an overgrown
teenager, made obscene crank calls to anonymous people. When one woman
answered her phone, Michael, according to Star, asked her about the size of
her genitals.

The boy was forced to admit that he'd lied during previous depositions,
including one taken in 2000 as part of a lawsuit the Arvizos filed against JC
Penney. Star claimed that his father never hit him and that his parents never
fought. Under Mesereau's stern questioning, the boy was forced to concede
that he'd committed perjury.

The teen was also forced to admit that he'd given conflicting accounts in
previous statements to a psychologist. Very forcefully, Mesereau pointed out
that Star had given three different versions of what he claimed he witnessed
Michael doing to Gavin's body. The attorney said, "In one version, Mr.
Jackson's hand was outside the boy's clothes; in another, it was inside, and in
a third Mr. Jackson was `rubbing his penis' against the boy's buttocks."

If Star appeared to be an inconsistent witness, his mother, Janet, was even worse on the
stand. In retrospect, some court observers
claimed that her appearance on April 3 lost the
case for the Arvizos. Even before she appeared in
court, the defense had sought to portray both her
and her family as "gold diggers who saw Mr.
Jackson as a celebrity fall guy to be milked for
cash."

O.J. Simpson

On the stand, Janet was a loose cannon and,
thanks to her erratic courtroom outbursts, the
most explosive witness in the case. A mercurial
character, she rarely gave a straight answer to any
of the defense team's questions. She repeatedly said, "It's burned inside my memory" or "money doesn't buy happiness." It
was also claimed that she exploited her cancer-stricken son for money and at
one time spent $7,000 shopping and dining out at the same time she alleged
that Michael was keeping both her and her family "captive."

In five days on the stand, the mother "ranted, raved, and refused to answer
questions." Many of her replies were nonsensical. The 36-year-old woman
kicked off her testimony by invoking her Fifth Amendment right against selfincrimination on questions about alleged welfare fraud. She admitted that
she'd lied under oath in an unrelated court case.