Jackson's Bed of "Unconditional Love"

Michael Jackson never denied sleeping with his young accuser. Not even to his attorney.

Mark Geragos, the star litigator who represented Jackson until the Scott Peterson murder case seemed to dominate his billable hours, told the jury in the pop singer's molestation trial Friday that Jackson admitted to sharing his bed with the boy, then 13.

And in that bed, Jackson told Geragos, "nothing happened."

"[He said] that there was nothing untoward, that there was nothing sexual, and that if somebody spends the night in his room, that that was just an act of unconditional love," Gergagos testified.

Geragos' appearance came one day after Superior Court Judge Rodney S. Melville threatened the always-booked lawyer with an arrest warrant if he didn't show.

Even with Geragos in the witness box, courtroom tensions remained high. The lawyer took exception to prosecutor Ronald J. Zonen's habit of asking questions about Jackson "sleeping with boys."

"Are you implying that's necessarily something sexual," Geragos asked Zonen, turning the tables on the prosecutor.

"I don't believe it's appropriate for me to be answering questions, Mr. Geragos," Zonen replied.

Melville ordered the two to "drop down about 2 degrees," as if the concerned parties were overheated horses.

Following the judge-ordered "time out," Geragos went on to explain why he was touchy about Zonen's word choice.

"When people say [Jackson is] sleeping with somebody in his room, the jump is--with a lot of people--that that is something that is awful, that is something that is really, really bad because it must be sexual," Geragos said.

On the contrary, Geragos said, Jackson was a man, who at their first meeting, struck him as a "almost childlike in his love for kids."

"I didn't see anything nefarious. I didn't see anything that struck me as potentially criminal," Geragos said. "But I didn't see somebody who appeared to be to be ripe as a target."

Geragos was hired by Jackson in February 2003, just as Martin Bashir's Living with Michael Jackson was debuting on TV.

Jurors on Thursday heard David LeGrand, yet another former Jackson attorney, describe the days surrounding the Bashir premiere as frantic, frenzied and "pretty darned close" to posing a public-relations nightmare.

The main source of the mania was Jackson's comments about how, despite being the object of a 1993-94 child molestation probe, he continued to open up his bed to children. Jackson delivered his soliloquy on the joys of slumber parties while holding the hand of the boy who would become his accuser.

Geragos said he was brought on board to protect both Jackson and his parental rights as accusations of wrongdoing were aired in the media. (The criminal investigation had not yet begun--and according to the prosecution's own timeline, a crime had not yet been committed.)

Of concern to Geragos was the family of the boy featured in the Bashir documentary. The lawyer said he'd been told the brood referred to Jackson as "Daddy," a term of endearment that he understood made Jackson uncomfortable. (The prosecution contends the cloying custom was encouraged by Jackson.)

Geragos said he immediately ran a database search on the family--the clan's sexual assault case against JCPenney caught his eye--and hired a private investigator, Bradley Miller, to "find out where they were, and to document what they were doing."

The prosecution introduced Miller's grainy surveillance tapes as proof of the conspiracy it alleges Jackson and his henchmen hatched to eliminate the potentially troublesome clan.

But Geragos' testimony--offering himself up as the man who ordered the tail and the tapes--potentially undermined the state's case against Jackson.

So did his explanation as to why it was so important to keep tabs on the accuser's family.

"You've got a whirlwind of activity going around [post-Bashir] and you've got people making accusations [in the media]," Geragos said. "It occurs to me that I want to know if some of the players that are involved have a litigious history."

"Were you ever part of any conspiracy to commit any crime against the [accuser's family]," defense attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr. asked Geragos.

"Absolutely not," Geragos said. "I was trying to prevent a crime against my client."

"And what crime was that?" Mesereau continued.

Said Geragos: "I thought that they were going to shake him down."

The cross-examination of Geragos was lengthy, and wasn't wrapped by the end of the day. Due to yet another scheduling conflict, Geragos won't be back to finish up on Monday. Instead, he's been ordered to return to the stand on May 20.

It was on Thursday that a lawyer for the lawyer told the court that Geragos' schedule wouldn't allow him to appear as subpoenaed on Friday. Melville said, oh, yes, it would.

"I expect him here at 8:30 tomorrow morning," Melville said Thursday. "[And if he's not], that will give me time to get the warrant out when he doesn't appear so he'll be here Monday for sure."

As it turned out, Geragos was at the Santa Maria, California, courthouse bright and early, although according to reports, he wasn't called to the stand until after a nearly four-hour wait.

Then when Geragos began testifying a controversy erupted over what he could or couldn't testify to.

When Geragos took the stand, per reports, Mesereau told the court that Jackson had waived his attorney-client privilege with regards to his ex-attorney, thereby allowing Geragos to serve as a witness. But later, after looking at the waiver, Geragos said was only allowed him to talk about events leading up to Jackson's November 2003 arrest, and nothing after.

This development didn't sit well with Melville, who thought the matter had been resolved. Mesereau said he meant to say the waiver was limited, but didn't--he apologized, a couple of times.

Geragos remained on as Jackson's attorney until April 2004, when he was fired amid speculation Camp Jackson thought he was too distracted by the Peterson case.

Elsewhere, David LeGrand, another former Jackson attorney, finished his second day on the stand.

In a key backtrack from Thursday's testimony, the attorney said he didn't know for sure if the $965,000 he said Jackson associates Ronald Konitzer and Dieter Weizner had diverted from the singer had really been diverted (as in ripped off), or if maybe the money had been taken on the up-and-up.

The defense had used LeGrand's testimony to show that Jackson was the puppet, not the puppet master, in the prosecution's conspiracy theory.

Jackson, 46, is accused of molesting and liquoring up his accuser at Neverland in 2003, and plotting to send the boy and his family to Brazil. He has pleaded innocent to all charges.