Jackson Witness Testifies on Inaccuracies

[b]Jackson Witness Testifies on Inaccuracies[/b] By LINDA DEUTSCH, AP Special Correspondent SANTA MARIA, Calif. – The mother of Michael Jackson’s accuser complained that she and her children were being kept away from the pop star during the time period prosecutors say one of her sons was being molested, a witness testified Thursday. [b]Azja Pryor, a Hollywood casting assistant and the girlfriend of movie star Chris Tucker, said the mother complained to her in early March 2003 that two German associates of Jackson had stepped in to keep her family away. “I asked, ‘Does Michael know anything about this?’ She said, ‘They won’t let us around him because they know the children tug at his heart strings,'” Pryor testified. The time period she cited is critical because prosecutors allege Jackson molested the then-13-year-old accuser between Feb. 20 and March 12, 2003.[/b] When the accuser’s mother testified in the trial, she bitterly spoke out against “the Germans” and claimed they were conspiring with Jackson to hold her family captive. Pryor began her testimony with a few tears, talking about how she met the family in 2001 when the boy was battling cancer. [b]She said she and the boy’s mother would talk for hours at a time on the phone, but the mother never complained to her about Jackson.[/b] Pryor took the stand after Judge Rodney S. Melville refused to allow the defense to present testimony by CNN’s Larry King that attorney Larry Feldman, who once represented the accuser’s mother, had told him the mother was “Michael” and out for money. The judge ruled out testimony by the talk show host and another man present at the conversation on grounds they were not able to say the lawyer directly quoted the accuser’s mother. King left the court without appearing before the jury, and the defense moved on to Pryor in its bid to discredit the accuser’s mother. In addition to molestation, Jackson, 46, is accused of giving the boy wine and conspiring to hold his family captive to get them to rebut a TV documentary in which Jackson said he let children sleep in his bed but that it was non-sexual. [b]Pryor smiled as she told Jackson attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr. that the accuser’s mother never told her she had tried to escape from Neverland. “Why are you smiling?” asked Mesereau. “It’s Neverland,” said the witness. “I don’t know who would ever want to escape Neverland.”[/b] ___ Associated Press Writer Tim Molloy contributed to this report. Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050519/ap_on_en_mu/michael_jackson_1