Jury Acquits Jackson on All Charges

The heart of the trial was the veracity of Jackson's accuser, now 15 and in remission from cancer, and his mother, sister and younger brother. The accuser said that Jackson fondled him twice. His younger brother recalled two other incidents, witnessed while he believed his older brother was asleep. The children also accused the singer of giving them wine, vodka and "Jim Bean" bourbon to drink, and their mother said they were kept as prisoners at Neverland in the wake of a controversial documentary about the singer by Martin Bashir.

But during the trial, Jackson attorney Mesereau scoffed at the family's motives, his voice dripping with derision when he called them "these little lambs," describing the family as seasoned shakedown artists attempting to pull off "the biggest con of their careers."

The family sued the JCPenney Co. after the boy was accused of shoplifting, saying that department store security guards roughed them up. They were awarded $152,000 in an out-of-court settlement.

Mesereau was merciless in his cross-examination of the accuser, his siblings, and especially his mother, whose time on the stand provided some of the more bizarre moments in the trial. She sparred with Mesereau and rolled her eyes and made exasperated comments to jurors about "the Germans" in Jackson's camp who kept her prisoner, even as she was taken out for trips to a day spa to have her legs waxed.

As for the children's testimony, it was often vague. They confused dates and times. The accuser admitted lying when he denied in earlier interviews with authorities that Jackson had molested him.

The current case erupted into the public eye in the fall of 2003, when dozens of Santa Barbara Sheriff's Department deputies descended on the singer's ranch in the coastal wine region. Armed with search warrants, they hauled away crates of pornographic material, computers, ranch records, videotapes and other evidence after the then-13-year-old cancer patient -- a Latino from a troubled family from East Los Angeles -- and his family charged that the pop star groped him in February and March of 2003.

The alleged molestation -- in which Jackson was accused of fondling himself and the young boy while the two were together in Jackson's bed -- occurred in the aftermath of the documentary filmed in late 2002 by British journalist Bashir, called "Living With Michael Jackson."

The boy said in court that the molestation began when "Michael started talking to me about masturbation. . . . He told me males had to masturbate. . . . If I didn't know how, he would do it for me." After about five minutes of touching, the boy said, "I kind of felt weird and embarrassed by it, and he said it was natural."

When the Bashir program aired on ABC in February 2003, Jackson was shown with the boy who would become his accuser, the two of them holding hands. On camera, Jackson denied having had plastic surgery -- but admitted sharing his bed with children during sleepovers at Neverland.

"Why can't you share your bed?" Jackson said. "The most loving thing to do is to share your bed with someone. It's a beautiful thing. It's very right. It's very loving. Because what's wrong with sharing a love?"

Jackson portrayed himself in the documentary as feeling like a little boy in a man's body. "I am Peter Pan," he told Bashir.

Previous incidents and allegations against Jackson were presented under a California law that allows a defendant's past actions to be weighed in sex crimes. Jurors said they found some of this evidence credible, but not enough to convict. During that part of the trial, former child actor Macaulay Culkin took the stand and said he had slept with Jackson on numerous occasions but denied any abuse. He described the relationship as "comforting" and Jackson as "childlike."

Two other young men, described in court as "special friends" who both slept with Jackson, also denied any inappropriate touching. The mother of one of the men, Joy Robson, said of Jackson: "Unless you know him, it's hard to understand him. . . . He's not the boy next door."

Now an acquitted man, Jackson is no less a mystery than when the trial began. But he is a happy one, said those who know him.

"I'm ecstatic," said Raymone Bain, a Washington publicist who worked as Jackson's spokesman during the trial. "We have been through pure hell. I just thank God that the jury showed mercy to Michael Jackson."

Staff writer Hamil R. Harris and the Associated Press contributed to this report.