Psychologist says he reported Jackson abuse claims

SANTA MARIA, California - Adolescent boys rarely make up sexual abuse allegations, a psychologist who interviewed Michael Jackson's accuser told jurors on Wednesday in the pop star's child molestation trial.

Dr. Stan Katz, a key prosecution witness who first reported the then-13-year-old boy's allegations to authorities, said "it would be highly unusual for a 12 to 13-year-old boy to make false accusations against a male."

Katz, who was hired to interview Jackson's accuser and the boy's younger brother and older sister by a lawyer retained by the family in June 2003, said he contacted social service officials almost immediately after speaking to the boy.

That call prompted an investigation by the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department and led to the criminal charges against the 46-year-old entertainer, who faces more than 20 years in prison if convicted on all 10 counts he faces, including child abduction, extortion and false imprisonment.

Jackson has pleaded innocent and his lawyers have argued that the abuse claims were invented by the mother of his accuser to wring money from the entertainer.

Katz, who is featured in a daytime reality TV show about women trying to change their lives called "Starting Over," was also involved in a 1993 case in which a boy accused Jackson of sexual abuse.

In a major setback to Jackson's defence, Santa Barbara County Superior Court Judge Rodney Melville ruled earlier this week that jurors could hear about that case, which Jackson settled out of court for US$23 ($32.81) million, as well as past claims of misconduct involving four other boys aged 10 to 13 years old.

On cross examination, Jackson lead attorney Tom Mesereau confronted Katz with some of his published work, including an article entitled "Stop the Witch Hunt for Child Molesters" and his published assertion that some 40 per cent of sexual abuse claims are "insubstantive. "

"You are aware that alleged victims of molestation often sue for millions of dollars in civil court, correct?" asked Mesereau.

"That is correct," Katz said.

But when asked later by Deputy District Attorney Rob Zonen, Katz said he had been writing about younger children when he described the ability of some parents to convince their own children that they had suffered molestation.

"In my experience, a child who is going to fabricate (abuse claims) can't be consistent or hold to that for very long," he said.

"They don't maintain consistent allegations when they start to believe the disadvantages outweigh the advantages."

Katz said he was paid US$4,800 to interview the three children by Larry Feldman, a lawyer for the family hired after a documentary aired showing Jackson holding hands with his young accuser and defending his practice of sharing his bed with children.

The psychologist was not asked by prosecutors to detail what Jackson's accuser or his brother or sister had told him in the course of his interviews.

"I was to interview three children about allegations they had been mistreated, abused, possibly molested," Katz said. "That they had participated in a television show without their consent. There were allegations and he asked me to sort it all out."

Earlier, Cynthia Bell, a flight attendant who flew with Jackson and the family of the boy from Miami to California in early 2003 said the boy had been unruly, throwing mashed potatoes at a sleeping doctor accompanying Jackson at one point.

"He's just an odd bird," Bell said. She said that although she had served wine to Jackson in a Diet Coke can on the flight, she did not see the 13-year-old drink from it as prosecutors have claimed.

- REUTERS