Jackson trial centers on fingerprints from porn

SANTA MARIA, California- A police detective told jurors today that he found 16 fingerprints on pornographic magazines seized from Michael Jackson's ranch as prosecutors prepared to argue that the prints belonged to the pop star and his young accuser.

The fingerprints were displayed on pictures taken from the magazines, which included Barely Legal, Finally Legal and Penthouse, and featured female genitalia, lesbian and oral sex, often performed by young women dressed as teenagers.

"These are graphic images, your honor," Santa Barbara County Deputy District Attorney Gordon Auchincloss said as defence attorneys objected to the matter as an unnecessary display. "But they are graphic images with fingerprints that are ultimately related to this case. "

Though court ended for the day before Det. Timothy Sutcliffe could tell jurors whom he believed had left the fingerprints, prosecutors have said that they belonged to Jackson and the boy who accuses him of child molestation.

The prints could be key corroboration of testimony by the boy, a recovered cancer patient who is now 15, and his younger brother that the 46-year-old entertainer showed them adult magazines in his bedroom at Neverland Valley Ranch.

Jackson is accused of molesting the boy, who was then 13, at Neverland and plying the youth with alcohol in order to abuse him. He is also charged with child abduction, extortion and false imprisonment.

The self-styled "King of Pop," who has pleaded innocent, faces more than 20 years in prison if he is convicted on all 10 counts of a Santa Barbara County grand jury indictment.

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The sexually explicit images capped a day of often tedious testimony into the intricacies of fingerprint technology that left jurors yawning or even nodding off in their seats.

Prosecutors said that on Monday they would call comedian George Lopez to the witness stand, after Superior Court Judge Rodney Melville issues a critical ruling in the case - whether or not to allow into the trial evidence of past sexual abuse accusations against Jackson.

Defence lawyers claim Lopez was one of many celebrities scammed by the family of the boy as part of a pattern, they say, of soliciting money from stars.

Jackson came to court dressed in a black suit with a red arm band and accompanied by his parents and defence team. Missing was lawyer Brian Oxman, who was taken from the courtroom on a gurney on Wednesday and diagnosed at a local hospital with pneumonia. Oxman has since been released.

The moonwalking entertainer has also appeared in ill health lately and told reporters outside court that his back and side were still in pain.

Forensic analyst Lisa Hemman testified that she analyzed 58 magazines or clippings taken from a briefcase full of pornography seized from Jackson's bedroom during a Nov. 18, 2003 raid. She said she recovered a number of fingerprints -- including some that she said belonged to "minors. "

On cross-examination, Hemman acknowledged that there have been misidentifications in fingerprinting by authorities in recent years, including that of the Oregon lawyer once accused of participating in a 2004 bombing in Madrid.

She also conceded that some of the early fingerprint identification findings in the Jackson case were later revised, but said that it was common to do so.

- REUTERS