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Mother of Jackson accuser testifies

SANTA MARIA, Calif. - Holding her arms out to the jury, the mother of Michael Jackson's teenage accuser sobbed and pleaded, "Please don't judge me!" as she recounted her family's involvement with the pop star in dramatic testimony Wednesday.

Judge Rodney S. Melville allowed her to testify despite her refusal to discuss alleged welfare fraud - an issue on which the defense had hoped to attack her credibility. She invoked the Fifth Amendment for that questioning.

Looking at the jury during a convoluted and sometimes tearful account, the woman once punctuated her words by snapping her fingers and later affected the German accent of a Jackson associate. She addressed news reporters directly at one point, and at other times glanced at Jackson, who sat motionless.

Jackson, 46, is accused of molesting a 13-year-old former cancer patient, plying the boy with alcohol, and holding his family captive in February and March 2003 to get them to help rebut a documentary.

The accuser's mother said Jackson had convinced her that her children were in danger, that there were "killers" after them, and that he was the only one who could protect them.

"I thought, "What a nice guy,"' she said. "I was just like a sponge, believing him, trusting him." She recounted what she sarcastically called Jackson's "lovey dovey speech" at a Florida hotel room, in which Jackson told the family "in a very male voice" that he would be their father figure and protector.

Asked by Senior Deputy District Attorney Ron Zonen about her memory of the events, she pointed to her head and exclaimed: "Some things are just burned in here."

She then offered an account, in conflict with testimony of other witnesses, in which she described seeing Jackson lick her son's head during a February 2003 flight from Miami to California on a private jet.

"Everyone was asleep. I had not slept for so long," she said. "I got up. I figured this was my chance to figure out what was going on back there. And that's when I saw Michael licking (the boy's) head."

Lawsuit alleges abuse, torture at Guantanamo

BOSTON - Lawyers for six men arrested in Bosnia and detained at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp sued the federal government Wednesday, leveling new allegations of abuse and torture by U.S. forces.

The lawsuit asks a judge to force the Department of Justice and Department of Defense to release information that would allegedly prove the torture of prisoners by American forces at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba.

Lawyers for the six men - all Algerians, four of whom have Bosnian citizenship - allege that repeated requests for the information under the Freedom of Information Act have been ignored by the federal government.

"We've had not a single document come through," attorney Robert C. Kirsch said.

The materials requested include the plaintiffs' medical records and military videos shot at Guantanamo Bay that purportedly show prisoners being abused.

Injured deputy released from brain injury center

ATLANTA - The deputy injured by the man who allegedly took her gun and went on a deadly courthouse shooting rampage was released Wednesday from a brain injury center where she had been recovering for nearly a month.

Fulton County Sheriff's Deputy Cynthia Hall walked on her own out of the Shepherd Center, thanking her physician, Dr. Gerald Bilsky, as she left.

Police say Brian Nichols attacked Hall as she escorted him to a courtroom in the Fulton County Courthouse on March 11.

Hall, 51, suffered bleeding of the brain and required surgery to restore a hole caused by fractures around her right eye.

Bilsky said Wednesday that she may never fully recover enough to handle a firearm and resume her former duties.

"A good outcome for her is to be independent," Bilsky said.

[Last modified April 14, 2005, 01:17:13]