After 14 weeks and more than 130 witnesses, the jury in the Michael Jackson trial finally retired on Friday to decide whether the singer was a naive victim of con artists or a predator who groomed a child for sexual acts.
Two hundred fans, a smattering of anti-war protesters and hundreds of members of the world’s media gathered outside the court in Santa Maria, California, to watch as Jackson, surrounded by his family, left the court after the final summing up.
The 46-year-old pop singer is to wait for the verdict at his Neverland ranch, 45 minutes from the court. Although the jurors are faced with a mass of evidence and a complex charge sheet, they are expected to return a verdict by the middle of next week.
Inside the court the trial ended as it had begun on the last day of January, with competing attorneys offering starkly contrasting views of the man and the issues.
For Jackson’s attorney, Thomas Mesereau, the key issue was the credibility of the family making the accusations, whom he has sought to portray as serial con artists who are seeking to profit from their one-time association with Mr Jackson.
For the prosecution attorney, Ron Zonen, the case was about a practiced paedophile grooming and sexualising vulnerable young boys.
Jackson is charged with sexually molesting Gavin Arvizo, now 15 years old, in early 2003. He is also charged with administering alcohol to a minor to enable a crime and with conspiracy involving kidnap, false imprisonment and extortion.
His spokesperson said he had been nervous in court, but added: ”He is not falling apart.” The singer said nothing as he left the court, accompanied by his mother, who has attended every day of the trial, his father and his three sisters, including LaToya and Janet, who made her first appearance yesterday.
Mesereau closed the defence case by playing outtakes from the Martin Bashir video documentary that led to the current allegations.
The prosecution chose to send the jury off with excerpts from Gavin Arvizo’s first interview with police, in which the young boy, dressed in blue shorts, white ankle socks and a short-sleeved blue shirt, reluctantly tells investigators that he was masturbated by Mr Jackson while lying on the singer’s bed at Neverland.
”You just witnessed the seven worst minutes of this young man’s life,” Mr Zonen told the jury. ”This is an absolutely sincere revelation by this child.”
But earlier, Mesereau had painted a very different picture of the boy and his family, portraying them as practised schemers, accomplished actors and determined grifters.
”He’s a liar, he’s a perjurer,” Mesereau told the jury.
He suggested that the Arvizos were motivated by the prospect of suing Jackson in a civil case should he be found guilty in the current criminal case.
”This case is a fraud,” he said. ”They’re trying to take advantage of Michael Jackson, they’re trying to profit from Michael Jackson … If you convict him of anything, they are going to be multi-millionaires.” He reminded the jury of their duty to acquit his client should there be reasonable doubt about any allegation.
”If you have reasonable doubt about the Arvizos the case is over,” he said. ”You must acquit Michael Jackson to follow the law.”
Praising Jackson as a sensitive and possibly naïve spirit, he said that the charges were ”preposterous”.
”Their basic claim is that he is akin to a monster … from what you have seen of Michael Jackson in this trial is that remotely possible? Does what you’ve seen in this trial make any of that possible?”
But the last word rested with the prosecution. Mr Zonen compared Mr Jackson’s relationship with Gavin Arvizo with his relationship with other young boys who have featured in the trial.
Describing the singer’s friendship with Brett Barnes, who, it emerged in court, slept with Jackson 365 nights during one year when he was a young child, Mr Zonen said: ”That is not a friendship, it’s a relationship. A sexual relationship.”
Craig Smith, a former public prosecutor in Santa Barbara county, argued that Mr Mesereau had made a misjudgment in concluding the defence case with a video of Jackson comparing himself to Mother Teresa and talking of his love for children.
”This is Santa Maria,” he said. ”This is a small town, this is not a place that is all that accepting of diversity, or of people who have different lifestyles.”
Trial by numbers
14 weeks of hearings
65 days of testimony
130 witnesses
600 items of evidence
98 pages of instructions from Judge Rodney Melville to the jury
20 years maximum sentence if Michael Jackson is found guilty of all charges
10 counts on indictment sheet
8 women and four men on the jury
13 age of accuser Gavin Arvizo when the molestation allegedly happened in 2003
$23m reportedly agreed as out-of-court settlement with Jordy Chandler in 1993
$2m settlement agreed with mother of Jason Francia in 1996
$152 000 settlement won by Arvizo family in 2000 lawsuit against JC Penney department store for maltreatment by a security guard
$270m estimated debts owed by Jackson in 2003
– Guardian Unlimited Â