Michael Jackson’s Thriller has been acquired a new certification by selling 27 million copies in the U.S.A.

Thriller is already the biggest selling album in the world, and despite the current problems Michael is facing record sales continue to soar!

Source: Billboard

Michael Jackson’s lawyers are working on their final arguments in the star’s child-sex trial that could go to the jurors within days, after three months of often graphic testimony.

Because Monday is a United States holiday, the trial judge, the prosecutors and the defence team won’t be back in court until Tuesday, when they will discuss the instructions they will give to the jurors.

Now that both sides have rested their case, the rival lawyers could start delivering their closing arguments as early as Wednesday, before handing the case to the 12 men and women who will ultimately decide whether Jackson should spend as many as 20 years behind bars.

Chief prosecutor Tom Sneddon and lead defence lawyer Thomas Mesereau are expected to focus largely on the credibility of the 15-year-old accuser and his younger brother, who were the only ones to testify directly to the alleged sexual abuse.

The defence team has pointed to inconsistencies in the boys’ testimony, and savaged the mother when she took the witness stand, portraying her as a grifter who coached her children to lie under oath in a bid to extort Jackson.

Source: Associated Press

Michael Jackson wanted to testify in his own defence at his child sex trial, but his lawyers had talked him out of it, his spokeswoman said yesterday.

Publicist Raymone Bain, speaking as the defence rested its case, said Jackson would have been a good witness, but his lawyers were opposed to the eccentric singing star taking the stand.

“His attorneys did not feel at this point in time in the trial it was necessary,” she said.

“Michael listened to his defence team and he was not going to say `I just demand’ on testifying. It was a group decision. At the end of the day, it was decided that it was not necessary for him to.”

But Ms Bain said Jackson would have made a good witness for his own defence.

“I think he would have been good for the jury. I think we have spoken the truth. He’s always maintained his innocence throughout this trial,” she said, predicting that Jackson would be acquitted. She also insisted that the star, who she said had a “strong grip on reality,” would never again put himself in a position where he could be accused of molesting children.

“His love for children has been an innocent one. He’s not done anything criminal or anything wrong.”

Source: Advertiser

Investigators’ first look at the boy who accused Michael Jackson of molesting him is also the last one jurors will be left with as they decide whether he is credible enough to convict the pop star. With evidence that included phone records and adult magazines and testimony from more than 130 witnesses including Macaulay Culkin, Chris Tucker and Jay Leno, the case may come down to whether jurors think the boy is believable.

Testimony ended Friday after prosecutors showed the panel the boy’s videotaped interview with sheriff’s detectives in July 2003.

“Bottom line, if they don’t believe the accuser, the jurors end up voting not guilty,” said Jim Hammer, a trial analyst and former San Francisco prosecutor.

Jackson, 46, is charged with molesting the then-13-year-old boy in February or March 2003, giving him wine and conspiring to hold his family captive to get them to rebut the damaging documentary, “Living With Michael Jackson.”

Jury deliberations could come as soon as this week.

The interview and other tapes played throughout the trial gave jurors several images of the boy.

He appears downcast, weak and ghostly in a September 2000 tape, a home movie in which Jackson takes the boy’s hand to help him onto a train, holds an umbrella over him as his brother pushes him in a wheelchair and sits with him next to a lake.

In later appearances, he is fresh-faced and confident. In the documentary footage and in a February 2003 video made by Jackson’s associates to rebut the documentary in which Jackson said he allowed children to sleep in his bed the boy defends the singer and praises him for helping him beat cancer.

A different side of his personality appears on the tape jurors saw Friday.

In a low, quiet voice, looking at the floor and pausing often, the boy tells sheriff’s investigators that Jackson acted inappropriately with him almost from the beginning starting with his first trip to Neverland in 2000.

His account is similar to the one he gave on the witness stand in March, though a few details were missing or somewhat inconsistent.

In his first visit to Jackson’s home, he said on the interview tape, Jackson showed him and his brother naked women on the Internet. But he did not tell investigators about two crude statements that he attributed to Jackson during his testimony.

He also said on the tape, as he did on the stand, that Jackson began fondling him one night in 2003 after saying he wanted to show him how to masturbate. The boy also told investigators that Jackson kept fondling him after he asked him to stop.

The boy did not tell the detectives something that he later said both Jackson and his grandmother told him: that men who don’t masturbate sometimes commit rape.

The boy said on the tape that Jackson molested him no more than five times. In his testimony, he said he remembered two times, but that there may have been more. His brother testified that he saw Jackson fondling the boy twice.

After the police interview was played Friday, giving jurors their last look at the boy, the courtroom was silent. When the lights came up, jurors were looking down, appearing somber.

“This ending is really the best thing the prosecution could have hoped for,” said Craig Smith, a Santa Barbara College of Law professor and former prosecutor.

Source: ABC News

Actor Chris Tucker testified today that he had warned Michael Jackson about the family of the boy who said he was molested by the pop star.

Tucker, who is also a well-known comedian, said he befriended the accuser in 2000 when the boy, now 15, was suffering from cancer. The boy wanted to be a comedian and made friends with many performers, including Tucker, who gave the family cash and presents.

“I wasn’t aware that he was fond of that many comedians,” Tucker testified. “His father said I was his favorite comedian.… I didn’t know he was contacting the whole town.”

The accuser and Tucker developed a relationship that included gifts and visits to sporting events, Tucker testified. At one basketball game, the accuser was introduced and photographed with Kobe Bryant.

The boy “was smart, cunning at times, but I always overlooked it because he was just a little kid,” Tucker said, explaining how the boy would manipulate his illness.

“Chris, let me have this,” Tucker testified. “Let me have this. Come on, I’m not feeling great.”

At one point, the actor, known for such films as the “Rush Hour” series with Jackie Chan and the science fiction thriller “The Fifth Element,” said he brought the family to Las Vegas to watch him work on a film. The family stayed a long time at his expense, Tucker said.

“I was hoping they” weren’t taking advantage, he testified.

At another point, Tucker said, his doubts grew. The family was complaining it needed personal transportation, so Tucker tried to make arrangements to give them one of his unneeded vehicles.

“I started getting nervous,” Tucker said. The mother “started crying, not in the normal way. She started acting like frantically, like mentally. Something wasn’t right.”

After a British documentary aired in early February 2003, Tucker said the accuser called him for help in getting to see Jackson, who was in Miami. On the documentary, Jackson is shown holding hands with the boy. The pop star also explained how he slept innocently with children.

Tucker said he arranged for the family to fly on his chartered plane and he brought them to the hotel, where he took Jackson aside to warn him about the mother’s emotional grasp.

The mother “was frantically saying the same thing, ‘Michael is the father,’ ‘Chris is the brother.’ That’s why I took Michael to the room and said, ‘Something ain’t right.’ I hadn’t even been around her that much. It was just getting to be a little too much,” Tucker testified.

Going through notebooks about a year ago, he said he found the family’s phone number, so he called the accuser.

“I heard someone in the background say, ‘Get off that phone now!’ Tucker said, adding he thought the voice was the mother’s.

Source: LA Times

Chris Tucker who was strong under defense questioning, appeared to have problems remembering key moments during cross-examination, handled by Santa Barbara County Dist. Atty. Thomas Sneddon.

In one typical exchange, Sneddon asked whether the telephone call had taken place after the charges against Jackson were announced. The comedian said he couldn’t remember.

Sneddon also questioned a trip Tucker took with the family to the movie star’s brother’s wedding. Tucker testified that he didn’t know who invited the family, though at points he implied that he might have allowed them to come.

Sneddon produced a photograph of Tucker and his family with the accuser’s family.

“It’s a nice photo. Can I get a copy of it?” asked Tucker.

“That depends on whether you are a good boy or not,” Sneddon replied.

Sneddon also presented documents designed to refute Tucker’s testimony about the chartered flight. Rather than being a special flight, the documents showed that the flight to Miami had been changed from a previously chartered flight to Orlando, where Tucker has a home.

Source: LA Times

Michael Jackson’s lawyers rested their defense on Wednesday after comedian Chris Tucker described the mother at the center of the child molestation case as “possessed” and said he warned the pop star about her months before sex abuse accusations surfaced.

“Your Honor, the defense rests,” lead Jackson attorney Tom Mesereau told the judge after calling 50 witnesses over 15 days intended to cast doubt on the motives and background of the young accuser and his family.

Jackson did not testify and despite a star-studded witness list that once included more than 300 people — including film legend Elizabeth Taylor and basketball star Kobe Bryant — the defense sharply curtailed its case over the past two weeks.

Source: Reuters

In a surprise move at the end of Wednesday’s court session, Jackson’s lawyers told Superior Court Judge Rodney Melville that they may use their brief “surrebuttal” case to again cross-examine Jackson’s now-15-year-old accuser.

Defense lawyer Robert Sanger said they wanted the boy back if prosecutors were allowed to put on a videotape of his interview with police in which he outlined his accusations against the Jackson.

Source: Reuters

Craig A. Smith, a professor at the Santa Barbara College of Law and a former prosecutor in the Santa Barbara County district attorney’s office, said that the defense had presented an effective case but that the California child molesting law gave the prosecution an advantage.

“They don’t have to prove that Jackson touched the boy sexually, only that he touched him to appeal to his own sexual passions,” Mr. Smith said.

On the whole, however, Mr. Smith said the defense achieved what it had sought. “They gave a picture of Michael Jackson as childlike and innocent,” he said, “a 46-year-old man who has trapped inside of him the soul of a 12-year-old boy.”

Source: NY Times

As they began their rebuttal case against Michael Jackson Wednesday, prosecutors asked to screen a July 2003 videotaped interview of the pop star’s teenage accuser telling law enforcement officers that he was molested.

Santa Barbara County District Attorney Tom Sneddon made the request after Jackson’s defense attorneys rested their case. Sneddon said the tape will debunk defense claims that the boy’s allegations against Jackson were contrived and “scripted.”

Jackson’s defense opposed the request, arguing that the hour-long police interview is inappropriate as rebuttal evidence. They also indicated that the accuser, who testified as a prosecution witness in March, may be recalled if the tape is played to jurors.

Superior Court Judge Rodney Melville was expected to rule on the request today.

Source: Santa Maria Times