Prosecution gives details of its case against star

LOS ANGELES – Michael Jackson didn’t kidnap and molest a young cancer survivor until after he was already under suspicion, prosecutors argued Tuesday.

Laying out details of the secretive case for the first time, prosecutors said the pop star’s alleged seduction of a 13-year-old boy started with a misbegotten plot to salvage his reputation from a scathing documentary.

The documentary, by British filmmaker Martin Bashir, aired in early February 2002 with Jackson holding hands and nuzzling with the alleged victim, identified in court as John Doe.

It “ignited a fireball of negative publicity that made (Jackson) the object of international loathing and scorn,” said Santa Barbara County Deputy District Attorney Gordon Auchincloss said. “The one person who could put out the fire was John Doe.”

Fearing for his career and reputation, Jackson hatched a plot to lure the boy and his family into captivity and force them to make a new film, clearing Jackson.

“This film was the driving force behind the conspiracy,” said Auchincloss.

But Jackson’s attempt to salvage his name instead became his downfall, Auchincloss said. “And then began the seduction of John Doe,” he said.

First Jackson flew the boy and his family off to Florida while the film was airing around the world. Then he brought them back to his Neverland Ranch, essentially kidnapping them, prosecutors say.

The family fled his clutches for a week, but was “cajoled back,” Auchincloss said, in mid-February. The mother was then separated from the boy and his brother and sent to live in a luxury hotel, while the boys were kept in Neverland.

The exact timing on the family’s movements remains unclear, but around the same time, from Feb. 7 to Feb. 14, state child welfare investigators opened a probe into Jackson, sparked by the Bashir film.

They found no wrongdoing, but according to prosecutors, Jackson was using his Neverland Ranch – a children’s paradise – to seduce the boy.

“There were late nights, no homework, no school … there was staying up late to watch movies … kids could eat whatever they wanted,” Auchincloss said. “It’s a world of self-indulgence for children … ultimately a successful effort to get the young victim to sleep in the bed of a superstar,” Auchincloss said.

“John Doe thought Michael Jackson was the coolest guy in the world.”

The prosecutor charged Jackson gave the boy alcohol – wine in soda cans that he called “Jesus juice” – and “He welcomed him into a world of secrecy away from his mother” before molesting him.

According to the prosecutor’s statements in court and the indictment, Jackson molested the boy between Feb. 20 and March 12.

Jackson’s lawyer, Tom Mesereau, called the prosecution’s claims “absurd.”

“She calls getting free room and board at Neverland and taking a private jet with Chris Tucker and staying at a luxury hotel in Miami false imprisonment. She left when she chose to.”

Mesereau called the prosecution’s claims “ridiculous – and a jury will think so.”