Jay Leno, one of America’s most popular and respected television personalities, gave evidence at the Michael Jackson trial on Tuesday, telling the court that he had been approached by the boy at the centre of the sexual molestation allegations and was suspicious of him.
But Leno stopped short of saying that the boy, Gavin Arvizo, and his family had asked for money.
He also denied that he had contacted police to tell them that the boy and his mother were attempting a scam.
The comedian’s testimony came as the trial of 46-year-old Jackson on multiple charges of child molestation and conspiracy neared an end. The defence is expected to rest its case shortly. Both the prosecution and the defence then have an opportunity to present a further rebuttal of the other side’s case.
With both sides indicating that the trial was entering its final stages, it appears that the defence has decided not to take the risk of putting Jackson on the witness stand.
The pop singer’s attorney, Thomas Mesereau, has a record of putting defendants on the stand in sexual abuse cases.
Leno, who has used the Jackson trial as comic fodder for his monologues on the hugely popular The Tonight Show, was called by the defence and was expected to bolster its claim that the Arvizo family was trying to get money from celebrities. But under questioning by Mesereau, he said: ”I wasn’t asked for any money, nor did I send any.”
He said he became suspicious when the boy told him that he was his hero.
”I’m not Batman,” he said, adding that it seemed ”a little unusual” for a teenage boy to idolise a comedian in his 50s.
”It sounded suspicious when a young person got overly effusive,” Leno said. ”It just didn’t click with me.”
He said he regularly spoke on the telephone to children who were ill, and that the boy, then suffering from cancer, began leaving messages on his answering machine in 2000.
Mesereau had promised in his opening statement to the court in the provincial California city of Santa Maria, that Leno would confirm that he had heard the boy’s mother, Janet Arvizo, telling him what to say in the background during one telephone call.
Mesereau also said that the comedian would tell the jury that he had called the police to report his suspicions about the family.
But in court, Leno said only that he had heard a voice in the background during one call with the boy, but could not be sure if it was his mother, a nurse, or somebody else.
Leno also said that he had not contacted the police, but they had contacted him about the family.
Leno is only the second celebrity to testify in a trial that was expected to see a procession of the cloistered and the privileged take the stand.
Mesereau, in his opening statement and in the witness list provided by the defence, suggested that stars including Elizabeth Taylor, Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross and Quincy Jones would testify.
Judge Rodney Melville ruled against the admissibility of testimony from another television host, Larry King.
Jackson’s attorneys are believed to have decided against calling a series of celebrity witnesses after the judge ruled that the evidence from any character witnesses the defence brought forward could be rebutted by anti-character witnesses from the prosecution.
However, the comedian Chris Tucker began testifying on Tuesday night, possibly as the final witness for the defence. Tucker, a close friend of the pop singer, befriended the accuser and his family after meeting them at a Hollywood comedy camp.
He supported the boy through his cancer and was present at some key events in the case, at the time of the broadcast of the Martin Bashir documentary Living with Michael Jackson, in 2003, in which Jackson said he let children share his bed.
The singer denies molesting the then 13-year-old Gavin Arvizo at his Neverland estate in February or March 2003, plying him with alcohol and conspiring to hold him and his family captive to get them to record an interview rebutting allegations of sexual abuse. He faces up to 20 years in prison if found guilty. – Guardian Unlimited Â