Boy's Family Did Not Plan Civil Suit

Attorney Says He Referred Parents to Psychologist

Larry Feldman, right, with D.A. Tom Sneddon, represented a previous Jackson accuser. (Carlo Allegri -- AP)

SANTA MARIA, Calif, April 1 -- A former attorney for the teenage boy who has accused Michael Jackson of sexual molestation testified Friday that the accuser's family never asked him to bring a civil suit against the famous pop star.

"I have never been asked to file any lawsuit against Michael Jackson" on behalf of this accuser, attorney Larry Feldman said.

But during cross-examination, Feldman allowed that the boy, now 15, could bring a civil suit at any time until he turns 20. Defense attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr. has argued that the family is trying to wrangle money from Jackson. Feldman also testified that in 1993 he represented a boy, then 13, who accused Jackson of molesting him. He said the case was settled in the accuser's favor; the settlement figure has been reported to be $20 million. Feldman acknowledged that, as part of the terms of that settlement, Jackson never admitted wrongdoing.

Prosecutor Tom Sneddon, Santa Barbara County's district attorney, displayed a photograph of the boy involved in the 1993 case -- a dark-eyed, handsome youth who looked rather like the accuser in the current case. Feldman remarked that the photo didn't do the boy justice.

"He was adorable," Feldman said.

Mesereau objected and the judge struck the remark from the record.

A jovial Feldman, who fidgeted, rubbed his face and cracked jokes on the stand, helped establish a timeline for the prosecution's case. Feldman said the family of the current accuser was referred to him by another attorney in 2003. He began researching the case, he said, and sent the family to Beverly Hills psychologist Stan Katz to "figure out what was happening." Katz testified earlier this week that he interviewed the boy in May 2003. The prosecution contends that in early 2003, Jackson gave the boy alcohol and molested him at his Neverland Ranch.

Feldman said he and Katz then went to the head of the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services, though the county did not take a report. What did he do then? Sneddon asked. "I called you," Feldman said.

When Mesereau took over, the hard-nosed defense attorney and the witness engaged in a lawyerly war of words, in which Mesereau repeatedly asked Feldman whether winning a criminal case might make it easier and cheaper for the attorney to win a future civil case against the pop star.

"Sir, I keep trying to tell you, that ain't the way it works," Feldman said, adding that the matter was more complicated than Mesereau's questions implied. "I can't answer it the way you want me to answer it. I'm happy to explain it to you." Finally, Feldman allowed that a criminal conviction would mean that in a subsequent civil case, "you would save some time and you would save some money." But he said putting the boy, who previously had cancer, through two trials would be "almost inhumane."

Mesereau has been trying to paint the accuser's mother as a schemer who used her son's cancer to solicit money from celebrities. In keeping with this tactic, Mesereau asked Feldman at one point if it was fair to say that "in Los Angeles County you're known as one of the more successful plaintiff's lawyers"?

"Say it again for the press," Feldman said, smiling, as the court erupted in laughter.

Toward the end of the day's proceedings, former Jackson employee Jesus Salas took the stand. He testified that he worked for Jackson first as a grounds maintenance supervisor and more recently as the manager of Jackson's residence on the ranch, but that he left in June 2003.

"There was some things that I didn't like about how things were running there," Salas said, explaining his departure from Neverland. "It was a lot of stress."

The prosecution contends Jackson and associates conspired to hold the family captive at Neverland and elsewhere, and to force them to take part in a video favorable to Jackson in the wake of a documentary damaging to the pop star's image. Salas's testimony will resume Monday.

Next week, the jury is expected to start hearing allegations that Jackson engaged in sexual and other inappropriate activity with five other boys.

Before dismissing jurors for the weekend, Judge Rodney S. Melville advised them to drive up a particular highway to see the "wildflower displays." He said he'd seen them recently and "it's just a nice way to relax," Melville said.

Asked after court if he, too, would go to visit the wildflowers, Jackson said: "Perhaps."