friedman talked with Mez?????

Friedman - (Jackson's) Champion: Singer Was Set to Testify

From Roger Friedman's column on June 17, 2005:

I finally spoke with defense attorney Tom Mesereau on Thursday in the late afternoon. He was kind enough to sandwich me in between his many media appearances. No matter: he is the star of the week, having saved Michael Jackson from living for a possible 18 years next to Charles Manson. How can he be anything other than pleased with himself?

We talked about Mesereau's stroke of genius: playing the outtake video of Jackson with Martin Bashir.

"It was two hours and 45 minutes," he said, "and it showed everything he was about."

Indeed, it also precluded the need, I said, for Jackson's own testimony. This was too perfect: no cross-examination.

"I intended to have him testify in the beginning," Mesereau said of Jackson. "And I was still going to do it. But the prosecution opened the door by playing the Bashir documentary, so we could do that. And you saw him talking about being in trees and playing with animals and all the rest. Come on, was this a man who could organize a conspiracy to kidnap a family to Brazil?

Mesereau said he felt confident about the case from the beginning, especially about Janet Arvizo. In pre- trial hearings, he said, he had already interviewed her for three hours and knew what direction she would take. I offered that one of his more brilliant moves was to not object to almost anything she said over three days of rambling, near psychotic testimony.

"You just wanted her to talk," Mesereau said, "It almost didn't matter what she said."

And talk she did: about "appeasing the killers," about body waxing vs. leg waxing, about Jackson's minions conspiring to kidnap her, about sending coded messages in conversations to her friends and family, about her kids and Jackson disappearing in a hot air balloon.

And all Mesereau did was let the jury hear it all, every bit of it, no matter - to use Arvizo's word - how "cuckoo" it was.

Jackson's lead attorney said he thought the prosecution lost focus early on, often concentrating on reminding the jury of his own deficiencies rather than on the case itself.

One piece of luck, he said, was that the district attorney insisted on switching the blame for Janet Arvizo's problems to David Arvizo, her ex-husband. The DA brought on plenty of people who described David as a rat.

"That made the case for us," he said. "Because you couldn't really separate them [in the jury's mind]."

In other words, the association was still there and reflected poorly on the family.

He thinks it really came down to the inconsistencies in the accusing boy's testimony. And that is why, Mesereau told me, he rested the defense case so abruptly.

"I told the jury in my closing argument, look at the statements the boy made. And you know, that's what they did apparently during deliberations. They went through his taped interview with the police bit by bit. And don't forget, they see the police on that tape telling him, before anything has been established, we're going to get Michael Jackson. Did that seem right?"

Mesereau said he was not disappointed by any of the defense witnesses, even Dr. Phillip Esplin, an expert who backfired a little under cross-examination by the prosecution.

He said the only real surprise was the medical worker who gave completely different testimony than she had supplied to his investigator about the accusing boy's urine test. But even that worked out to his advantage.

I did ask him if any prosecution witnesses he examined, who turned out to be of help for the defense, surprised him.

"Not really," he said, explaining that he anticipated most of their answers. He even knew that Cynthia Ann Bell - the charmingly ditzy stewardess whose famous line "I had the best seat in the house: I was standing!" - would be an asset.

"I really enjoy doing cross-examination," Mesereau said. You bet he does.

What Mesereau would not talk about was limited to discussion of Brian Oxman, the attorney he publicly fired in the middle of the trial, and Randy Jackson, Michael's brother.

After all, it was that pair who brought him in to replace Mark Geragos.

So we still don't really know if the reasons for the firing came out of the bail bond scandal or anything else. Then again, when I offered three different scenarios, he didn't balk at any of them.

Mesereau will put in an appearance on Jay Leno on Friday to tell Jackson's side of the story. Then he'll take a much deserved vacation and "get out of town" for a bit.

When I mentioned that Michael was doing the same thing, he said that he hadn't heard of any plans. But maybe they'll wind up in Europe together. (Jackson, by the way, on his way to Switzerland this weekend, will have to return for depositions in the Marc Schaffel lawsuit and for some kind of resolution in his family court matter with Debbie Rowe.)

One last thing: what did he think of deputy District Attorney Ron Zonen, his chief adversary in the proceedings?

"I think he's an excellent trial lawyer," Mesereau said, and I don't think he was being diplomatic. He really meant it.

I think we'll hear more from Mesereau once he's had his break and cleared his head. It's time to let him savor his victory. He did something almost no other lawyer could have done. I only hope Jackson appreciates that.

Source: MJFC / Fox News - used by special permission of Roger Friedman