Prosecutors rest case against Michael Jackson

SANTA MARIA - Prosecutors rested their case against Michael Jackson today after a former employee described the pop icon's involvement in a bid to salvage his image amid the furor over a TV documentary that showed him cuddling with a young boy.

Santa Barbara County District Attorney Tom Sneddon told the court that he was prepared to rest his case following the testimony of record promoter Rudy Provencio, a star prosecution witness to conspiracy charges against the 46-year-old singer.

Sneddon and his team summoned some 85 witnesses and introduced more than 500 pieces of evidence over two months as they tried to prove that Jackson molested the then-13-year-old boy seen in the documentary, plied the recovering cancer patient with alcohol in order to abuse him and conspired to commit false imprisonment, child abduction and extortion.

Defence lawyers filed an immediate motion to dismiss all of the charges for lack of evidence. Superior Court Judge Rodney Melville said he would consider that on Thursday before jurors are called back to court.

If Melville denies the motion Jackson's lawyers will call their first witnesses in his defence, reportedly to include one or more of the young boys who prosecutors say he molested or treated inappropriately over the past decade.

Melville permitted evidence of Jackson's past behavior toward boys under a California law governing sex crimes and written in part with the superstar in mind. Legal experts say that evidence may be the prosecution's most effective weapon.

Defence lawyers have vowed that some of the most famous people in America, including film legend Elizabeth Taylor and late-night talk-show host Jay Leno, will testify on Jackson's behalf.

'THEY COULD BLACKMAIL YOU'

Provencio, the final prosecution witness, told jurors that he worked with Jackson over a two-year period as the entertainer and an associate, Marc Schaffel, tried to put together a charity record.

That project fell apart over controversy stemming from Schaffel's background as a pornographer, Provencio said, but he overheard a series of phone calls between Jackson and associates in February and March of 2003 dealing with the fallout from the documentary.

It was during those calls, he said, that a plan was hatched to film a so-called rebuttal tape involving Jackson's young accuser and his family -- a tape that has become central to the conspiracy charges.

Provencio recalled the idea for a rebuttal tape emerging as Schaffel and another Jackson aide counseled the superstar that his accuser's family "could ruin your career, they could blackmail you."

Later Provencio, who took copious notes during his employment with Jackson, said Schaffel alarmed him when he made "a flippant remark about killers" pursuing the family.

In early March 2003, around the time the mother of Jackson's accuser says she fled Neverland, Provencio said Schaffel broke off a phone call, saying he could not talk because "they just escaped."

Schaffel, he said, also coached Jackson's ex-wife Debbie Rowe through her appearance in a rebuttal video, telling her at one point that she should "cry better."

On cross-examination, defence lawyer Tom Mesereau suggested that Provencio had written down his notes later, confusing dates in the process, in an effort to interject himself into the high-profile case and make money from a book.

Mesereau pointed out Provencio had not mentioned the "killers" in his first interview with police and had failed to name Jackson when he was first naming those involved in what he considered the suspicious events of early 2003.

Jackson, who has pleaded innocent, faces over 20 years in prison if convicted on all charges against him.

- REUTERS