Michael Jackson Defense Begins
The defense in Michael Jackson‘s child molestation trial began Thursday with the pop star’s lawyers asking for the charges against him to be dismissed. Once that motion was denied, they went on to call their first witness, a man who testified that although he’d slept in Jackson’s bed on several occasions as a child, nothing inappropriate had ever taken place.
Wade Robson, who had been a child dancer in Jackson’s 1993 DVD Dangerous, stated that he had shared the pop star’s bed nearly twenty times since making his acquaintance at the age of five. Now 22, Robson testified that the two had spent time together watching movies, playing video games and having pillow fights — but that the singer had never touched him sexually.
“I’m telling you nothing happened,” said Robson, according to reports. When asked if he might have been molested while asleep, Robson replied, “I think something like that would wake me up.”
One witness for the prosecution, a former Jackson maid whose son received a multi-million-dollar settlement in the Nineties after accusing the singer of molesting him, had testified that she saw Jackson showering with then-eleven-year-old Robson. Robson denied this claim.
Actor Macaulay Culkin, who became friends with Jackson as a child and appeared in the 1991 video for Jackson’s “Black or White,” is expected to be called to the stand today.