Santa Maria, Calif. – Jay Leno, who regularly skewers Michael Jackson in his “Tonight Show” monologues, arrived at court today to testify for the singer’s defense.
Leno smiled to spectators and shook hands with sheriff’s deputies. Jackson arrived about 20 minutes later, accompanied by his parents, and was greeted by fans’ screams and chants.
Leno was expected to testify he once received a phone call from someone he believed to be the boy who is now accusing Jackson of child molestation.
Jackson attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr. said in his opening statement to the jury that Leno was suspicious of the call and reported to Santa Barbara authorities that “something was wrong. They were looking for a mark.”
Defense attorneys say Leno was one of several celebrities – including Jackson – who the accuser’s family tried to bilk out of money. Comedian Chris Tucker also is among remaining defense witnesses.
Leno dedicated much of his “Tonight Show” monologue Monday night to discussing his court appearance.
Noting he has often poked fun at Jackson’s expense, Leno quipped: “I was called by the defense. Apparently they’ve never seen this program.”
Referring to the heat wave gripping Southern California, Leno said he’s been “sweating like a Cub Scout” at Jackson’s Neverland Ranch.
Jackson, 46, is accused of molesting the boy in February or March 2003 when he was 13, giving him alcohol and conspiring to hold the boy’s family captive to get them to rebut a documentary in which the boy appeared with Jackson as the entertainer said he let children into his bed for innocent, non-sexual sleepovers.
Jackson’s attorneys on Monday called witnesses who painted the boy’s mother as a welfare cheat who exploited her son’s cancer to get money and lived lavishly at Jackson’s expense.
The defense tried to show the mother was behind several moneymaking schemes and angrily rejected people who sought to help her with anything but cash.
The mother’s former sister-in-law testified that the mother used profanity to denounce blood drives held for the accuser when he was fighting cancer.
“She told me that she didn’t need my (expletive) blood,” said the former sister-in-law, bursting into tears, “that she needed money.”
Other defense witnesses Monday included a welfare worker who said the accuser’s mother did not disclose that her family received a $152,000 lawsuit settlement just 10 days before she filled out a welfare application, and an accountant who said Jackson paid $7,000 in shopping, dining and other expenses for the family during a week of their alleged captivity.
