From PEOPLE Magazine
Click to enlarge
But when the dramatic verdict finally came down on June 13, clearing him of all charges of molesting a 13-year-old cancer survivor, it was Jackson, 46, who looked in need of assistance. Whisked in what appeared to be a trance-like state from the Santa Maria, Calif., courthouse back to Neverland, his motorcade did not even pause to let him wave to the hundreds of cheering fans outside the gates. Later, when his father, Joe, came down to greet the faithful and was asked where the singer was on this, a day presumably for celebration, he gave a telling reply. "He's in bed right now," said Joe. "He's trying to get rest, to get back strong."
That of course will take some doing. Though the verdict was a crushing defeat for prosecutor Tom Sneddon, who began pursuing similar charges against Jackson more than a decade ago, the trial itself marked a new low point for the ex-superstar, what with all the lurid testimony about porn magazines, booze and unsupervised sleep-overs with a gaggle of young boys. "Tom Sneddon lost the case but at the end of the day he may have won," says legal analyst and former Seattle prosecutor Anne Bremner. "Michael Jackson is now tainted as an accused pedophile. It has to be devastating to him." In a Gallup poll taken right after the verdict, 48 percent of those surveyed disagreed with the jury's decision; only 34 percent thought the panel had made the right call.
Some of the jurors themselves made it clear that in finding Jackson not guilty they did not find him blameless. Juror Raymond Hultman, 62, an engineer, told PEOPLE that heading into the deliberations he and two other jurors believed Jackson was guilty. "It's hard to believe he would sleep with some boy for 365 days a year and simply watch movies and eat popcorn," says Hultman, referring to testimony from another boy during the trial who maintained that Jackson had feted him without any inappropriate contact. "The deliberations were intense." Says jury foreman Paul Rodriguez, 63, a retired high school guidance counselor: "There were a lot of heated moments inside—a lot of debates." Finally the three doubters accepted the view that the prosecution had come up short in marshalling the evidence. "I think Michael Jackson probably has molested boys," said Hultman. "But that doesn't make him guilty of the charges in this case."
The key to tipping the scales in Jackson's favor was the mother of the accuser. Again and again defense attorney Thomas Mesereau referred to her as a "con artist," citing testimony that she had scammed JCPenney in a lawsuit and had also committed welfare fraud. Often rambling, argumentative or nearly incoherent, she told strange tales, including her fear that Jackson minions would spirit her and her sons away in a hot-air balloon. "She was one of the most bizarre witnesses I've ever seen in my life," says Inside Edition analyst Jim Moret. At one point, when asked why she had done nothing when she supposedly saw Jackson licking her son's head, the mother blurted out, "Please don't judge me!"
But the jury did judge her—and harshly. As juror Hultman tells it, the panel eventually embraced the defense argument that the mother had cooked up the accusations as a means to extort money from Jackson. "The accuser's mother was an opportunist," he says. Adds juror Susan Drake: "Everybody thought she was not truthful."
In a postmortem with PEOPLE, prosecutor Sneddon contended that the real problem he confronted was Jackson's star power. "We probably underestimated the impact of celebrity on the jury," he says. "Anybody would tell you that if this had been Joe Blow, the jury would have been back in four hours with a guilty verdict." But the jurors roundly dismissed that notion. "One of the first things we decided was that we had to look at him just like any other individual, not just as a celebrity," said Rodriguez.
All the same, says Sneddon, when he talked to the accuser, now 15, after the verdict, the boy had trouble fathoming what had gone wrong. "He didn't understand," says the D.A. "It's tough for a teen to do what he did in terms of coming forward and then be branded a liar." Sneddon tried to put things in perspective for him. "He's a football player, and I've done a lot of coaching," he says. "Just like in football, you go out and do your best, but sometimes it doesn't turn out as you hoped."
One of the ironies of the case was that Jackson initially fretted over the makeup of the jury, which did not include any African-Americans. According to his jury consultant, Dr. J. Lee Meihls, during the selection process he wanted to load up on people with a strong sense of fashion because he thought they would better understand him. "If someone came in with a cutting-edge look, with a bright or sparkly dress or shirt, that got his attention," recalls Meihls. It had to be explained to him, however, that he didn't have the final say. "He didn't realize you just can't have who you want," says Meihls. "There were a couple of black women who were rejected by the prosecution. Michael wanted us to do whatever had to be done to get them on the jury. We had to explain to him that it doesn't work that way."
Nor does the wrap-up of this criminal case mean the end of his legal or financial troubles (see box). It is an open question whether the accuser intends to file a civil suit against Jackson. Legal analyst Trent Copeland believes that if a civil suit were filed soon, Jackson, who could be compelled to testify, might decide to cut his losses and settle. "If they move quickly enough," says Copeland, "they may find out that Michael Jackson simply does not have the stomach to litigate." More concretely, his attorney Mesereau promised that Jackson would no longer host sleepovers with children in his room. Said Mesereau on CNN: "He's been too nice to too many people...and that has to change."
Meanwhile, as Jackson recuperated at Neverland, there was vague talk in the family of a Jackson reunion tour sometime in the future. But first the furor generated by the case will have to die down. "People need to look at what it's been like for Michael with the whole world going through his life," says his brother Tito. "All of this is now behind him, and he just needs to rest. He needs to be able to get his mind back to what he does best, and that is to create wonderful music for people."
Bill Hewitt. Champ Clark, Johnny Dodd and Frank Swertlow in Santa Maria and Ron Arias, Vickie Bane, Howard Breuer and Maureen Harrington in Los Angeles
Get up-to-the-minute celebrity news and photos on your cellphone, iPhone or Blackberry at www.people.com!
