"Here you have a defendant that is better known than the president of the United States," said Bernard S. Grimm, a criminal defense attorney in Washington. "And his life transcends bizarre."
Strangeness is one thing. But allegations of pedophilia create a whole different category. In recent memory, there has not been a more famous celebrity on trial for such serious charges.
Jackson greeting several hundred children invited to his Neverland Valley Ranch on Dec. 17.
(Mark J. Terrill -- AP)
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"This is America. A whole lot of people have fallen down and been picked back up. But this is not Martha Stewart, who has been charged with lying to the government," said Todd Boyd, professor of critical studies at the University of Southern California, who has written widely on hip-hop culture. "Can the most popular person in the world stand child molestation charges? If he's convicted and he's guilty, forget it. It's over."
In 1993, Jackson faced a sprawling investigation into allegations that he molested a 13-year-old boy at his Neverland Valley Ranch; details of the case closely track the current charges.
The criminal pursuit, though, was dropped after Jackson reached an out-of-court settlement with his accuser, now an adult, and his family, for a reported $20 million -- a deal that Jackson now says he regrets and blames on greedy managers who just wanted to settle the case and get back to making money.
His current troubles began in February 2003 with the airing of a BBC documentary that showed Jackson defending his practice of sleeping with boys in his bed and in which he said, "Why can't you share your bed? That's the most loving thing to do is share your bed with someone."
During the scene, the alleged victim -- a boy from East Los Angeles who first met Jackson when he was 10, while undergoing chemotherapy for a rare cancer -- is shown snuggling his head against the singer's shoulder and holding his hand.
Understanding the exact case and evidence against Jackson is complicated because of Melville's ruling to keep under seal or to heavily redact many of the court documents, including grand jury testimony and lists of items seized during searches of Neverland. He also placed both sides -- including lawyers and representatives -- under a strict gag order, hoping to keep the jury pool from being tainted with pretrial information.
But from pretrial hearings, court documents and interviews with criminal attorneys not associated with the case, a rough picture of the trial has emerged.
The prosecution's case, led by Santa Barbara District Attorney Tom Sneddon (who participated in the aborted 1993 investigation and whom Jackson excoriated in a 1995 song) will likely focus on the testimony of the alleged victim, his younger brother, older sister and his mother.
In the indictment, Jackson is accused of sexually molesting the boy and giving him "intoxicating agents" to abet his crimes, and of imprisoning his family in the days after the BBC documentary aired in the United States on ABC.
In an appearance during the pretrial hearings, the mother seemed by turns shrewd and naive. The false imprisonment charges revolve, the prosecutors will argue, around the Jackson camp's attempt to shield the alleged victim and his family from the media; the mother told investigators that "Michael's damage-control people" warned the family there were death threats against them; there was talk of sending them to Brazil.
Still, the boy and his family made a videotaped statement (also aired on ABC) to rebut the BBC documentary, praising the kindness of the singer. The prosecution will likely seek to show that the video was made under duress.
In addition, Sneddon and his team will also try to buttress their case with items taken during two searches of Neverland as well as a raid on the offices of one of Jackson's private investigators and the house where the rebuttal video was made.
