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Jackson Prosecution Shows Phone Evidence

Posted on: Tuesday, 3 May 2005, 09:00 CDT

SANTA MARIA, Calif. - A flurry of phone calls were exchanged by associates of Michael Jackson during the weeks surrounding the broadcast of a damaging documentary, but what that implies about the singer remains unclear.

Prosecutors presented the phone records Monday as they drew toward the end of their molestation and conspiracy case. They said last week they would rest their case Tuesday, but it was unclear Monday whether they were on track to meet the self-imposed deadline.

The jury was not told how the calls support the case, but prosecutors are expected to say in final arguments that they show frantic activity in an effort to stem the damage caused by the "Living With Michael Jackson" documentary.

Prosecutor Mag Nicola spent hours showing jurors charts of calls, primarily between the phones of three men prosecutors have named as Jackson's unindicted co-conspirators, the mother of the boy accusing Jackson of molestation, and an assortment of Jackson employees and lawyers.

The alleged co-conspirators identified in the records were Frank Cascio, also known as Frank Tyson, and Vincent Amen and Marc Schaffel. The most talkative member of the group apparently was Cascio, whose phone was involved in 38 calls to Schaffel and 19 to Amen on one day.

The charted calls began in February 2003 and continued into the following month.

The first series of calls occurred during a trip to Miami by Jackson, his entourage, the accuser and the boy's family. Prosecutors showed calls to and from the presidential suite at the Miami resort where Jackson stayed.

In a key question during cross-examination, defense attorney Robert Sanger asked the witness, sheriff's Detective Craig Bonner, if Jackson could be linked to the calls.

"In all these phone records you had were you ever able to determine if Michael Jackson was on a single call?" the attorney asked.

"No," said Bonner.

Bonner also acknowledged that the records only reflected whose phones were used to make the calls, not who actually spoke.

Bonner acknowledged, for instance, that there were many people at Schaffel's office, and agreed it was unlikely that a one-minute call to an attorney's office would get through a receptionist in that time. The defense similarly suggested that some calls to the resort would only have reached a receptionist.

Jackson, 46, is accused of molesting a 13-year-old boy at his Neverland ranch, giving him alcohol and conspiring to hold the boy's family captive to rebut the documentary, in which the singer said he shared his bed with children.

In other testimony Monday, a bank manager testified that in April 2003, Schaffel cashed checks for $1 million and $500,000 on an account for which he and Jackson were the only signatories.

Schaffel's name has come up repeatedly in connection with efforts to contain harm to Jackson's image from the documentary. Schaffel has claimed in a civil lawsuit that he had extensive financial dealings with Jackson and that the pop star owes him more than $3 million in loans and producing fees.

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AP Special Correspondent Linda Deutsch contributed to this report.

Source: Associated Press/AP Online

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