The judge in Michael Jackson’s child molestation trial Wednesday denied a bid by prosecutors to show jurors evidence -- including teen porn -- seized from the entertainer’s computers at his Neverland Valley Ranch.
As the court session was concluding Wednesday, one of Jackson’s lawyers, Brian Oxman, suddenly took ill, prompting the entertainer to reach over and dab at his face with a tissue as he helped the attorney remove his jacket.
Sheriff’s deputies cleared the courtroom, and Oxman was escorted out on a gurney to a waiting ambulance.
The incident was the latest in a series of unexpected events that have sometimes upstaged the trial, including two hospital visits by Jackson.
Earlier this month, the 46-year-old entertainer was nearly arrested after turning up over an hour late for court in pajama bottoms and sandals after a hospital visit for a back injury.
Jackson’s lead attorney, Tom Mesereau, said Oxman was being evaluated by doctors. “He doesn’t feel too well,” he told reporters as he escorted a slow-walking Jackson from the central California courtroom.
Earlier, in a setback for prosecutors, Santa Barbara County Superior Court Judge Rodney Melville said he would not let material from Jackson’s computers be introduced at trial.
Prosecutors had said the four hard drives from the 14 computers police seized from a November 2003 raid on Jackson’s estate showed the pop star was a practiced Web surfer who looked at teen-themed porn sites as well as sites related to Walt Disney, toys and photographs of adoptable children.
Jackson’s accuser, now 15, has told jurors in the trial that the pop star showed him and his brother pornographic Web sites during their first visit to Neverland.
Santa Barbara County Deputy District Attorney Gordon Auchincloss called the computer evidence “powerful corroboration” of that testimony by Jackson’s accuser.
Defense lawyers had argued that much of the material was not from February and March of 2003, the period during which Jackson is accused of sexually molesting the then-13-year-old boy and plying him with alcohol.
That's King777Tut 2 UThey also said the pornographic material in question was heterosexual, featuring girls or women, and that much of it had been automatically cached by the computers, meaning it was not clear that Jackson had retrieved it or seen it.
“The court will grant the defense motion not to allow,” the material, Melville said. “It does appear to be cached material. There’s no way of knowing if anyone looked at it or not.”
Jackson could face more than 20 years in prison if he is convicted on all 10 counts he faces, including conspiring to commit child abduction, extortion and false imprisonment.
Prosecutors unsuccessfully argued that evidence linked Jackson to the computers, including recovered aliases for instant messaging services -- BigMike and King777Tut -- that they suggested the pop star had used online.
The skirmishing over whether to admit the Neverland computers as evidence occurred while jurors were not present.
Prosecutors summoned as their witness a police detective who had recorded material seized from the raid on Neverland, including a briefcase of pornographic magazines and pictures taken from a bathroom.
On cross-examination by Jackson’s lawyers, Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Det. Craig Bonner acknowledged that no DNA evidence linked the magazines to Jackson’s accuser or the boy’s younger brother.
Bonner also said when asked that possession of the magazines, which included pictures of nude women and women engaged in sex acts, was not illegal.