update

Michael Jackson is a scheming serial pedophile with a drinking problem who should finally be held responsible for sexually abusing young boys, a prosecutor said on Thursday, in a searing attack on the pop star during closing arguments in his molestation trial.

But Jackson's chief attorney called the charges a mean-spirited bid to "dehumanize" one of the world's best-loved entertainers and labeled the accusers "con artists, actors and liars."

The blistering closing remarks capped a bitter, four-month court fight over accusations that Jackson molested a 13-year-old boy at his Neverland Valley Ranch in 2003. The defense claims the 46-year-old singer was framed by a family with a penchant for shaking down celebrities.

Jackson has pleaded innocent to molesting the boy, plying him with alcohol, and conspiring to commit child abduction, false imprisonment and extortion. The pop star faces more than two decades in prison if convicted on all charges.

"Michael Jackson, not for the first time, took sexual liberties with a 13-year-old boy," Deputy District Attorney Ron Zonen told a packed courtroom. He asked jurors to recall the young cancer survivor's account of being masturbated repeatedly by Jackson.

"That testimony should be believed, and Michael Jackson should be held responsible for what he did," Zonen said.

The veteran prosecutor ripped into Jackson as a manipulative pedophile who used his fame, wealth and the lure of the kid-friendly Neverland to groom vulnerable adolescent boys for sexual abuse.

"At night they entered into the world of the forbidden, they went into Michael Jackson's bedroom, which was a veritable fortress," Zonen said in reference to the room's keypad locks and alarm systems. "They learned about human sexuality from someone who was all too willing to be their teacher."

BIGGER THAN ELVIS

He said the boys came from homes with absent fathers and that Jackson targeted their weakness: "The lion on the Serengeti doesn't go after the strongest antelope."

Zonen showed the jury a sampling of Jackson's pornography, some of it homoerotic, asking jurors: "Are you comfortable with a middle-aged man getting in bed with a teenage boy as he possesses material like this that excites him?"

And the prosecutor recalled evidence that Jackson gave alcohol to the boys and was frequently intoxicated, saying: "Michael Jackson has a drinking problem. There's no other explanation for it."

Lead defense attorney Tom Mesereau spent the first 25 minutes of his closing argument attacking the accuser's mother, whom he has called a liar, welfare cheat and grifter not above exploiting her cancer-stricken son.

He said the family was hoping to convict Jackson in criminal court, then use that verdict to win a civil judgment. "There's only one thing they need," he said. "A conviction from you."

Mesereau said drinking and reading "girlie magazines" were not crimes and that prosecutors had engaged in "a mean-spirited, nasty barbaric attempt to dehumanize Mr. Jackson."

After four-months of stressing Jackson's musical talents, childlike innocence and kindness, Mesereau offered a rare assessment of his client's human side.

"Some say he's better known around the world than Elvis," Mesereau said. "But that comes with a price. And sometimes that price is loneliness and confusion over who his real friends are."


The case is expected to go to the jury on Friday after arguments from both sides conclude.