Jurors start deliberating

Jurors in Michael Jackson's molestation trial yesterday began weighing the charges against the pop star after duelling closing arguments portrayed him as either a sexual predator or the naive victim of a family of hardened liars.

Santa Barbara County Superior Court Judge Rodney Melville told the jury of eight women and four men they remained "the impartial judges of the facts" after the bitter four-month trial and asked them to chose a foreman and begin deliberations.

Prosecutor Ron Zonen, in his final statement to jurors, returned to the charge the 46-year-old Jackson was a serial paedophile with a history of falling in love with young boys and sleeping with them for weeks and months.

Mr Zonen urged jurors to cut through Jackson's aura of celebrity and eccentricity and convict the pop star, saying if a man in their own neighbourhood had been sleeping with children "amid a sea of pornography and alcohol" they would have called police immediately.

In an apparent protest, Jackson's sisters, La Toya and Janet, who were sitting in the first row of the courtroom, stood up and walked out as Mr Zonen began his final rebuttal.

Earlier, lead defence lawyer Tom Mesereau pleaded with jurors to acquit, saying it was impossible to believe Jackson was the ruthless sexual predator prosecutors charge.

Dr Mesereau said Jackson's now 15-year-old accuser lied on the witness stand and to police and that the boy and his family had been "swimming around lawyers, swimming around manipulation, swimming around false claims for years."

"It only takes one lie under oath to throw this case out of court by you, and you can't count the lies," Dr Mesereau told the jury. Dr Mesereau also took aim at the prosecution argument that Jackson targeted vulnerable boys for sexual abuse, as prosecutors say he did with his accuser, a former cancer patient.

"Remember their basic claim is that he is akin to a monster. That he would take a cancer patient and see him as a target. ... Does what you've seen in this trial reflect that? Is it even possible? It's not," he said.

Jackson sat impassively through the last day of courtroom proceedings in his trial in a dark suit and light vest, accompanied by a large contingent of his famous family.

Mr Melville told Jackson he could return to his Neverland ranch to await the verdict.

Outside the packed courtroom, several dozen supporters cheered and carried placards of encouragement. One sign said: "Michael Jackson is love."

Another criticized Santa Barbara County District Attorney Tom Sneddon for his long-running prosecution of Jackson. The pro-Jackson sign read: "Sneddon and the rest of the liars will burn in hell."

The jurors, who live in the central California town of Santa Maria and surrounding communities, will weigh the charges against Jackson behind closed doors until they reach a verdict on all 10 criminal counts against him or announce they are hopelessly deadlocked.

The panel will have to consider testimony from some 140 witnesses and more than 600 items of evidence.

Jackson has pleaded innocent to molesting his accuser in February or March of 2003, plying him with alcohol in order to abuse him, and conspiring to commit child abduction, false imprisonment and extortion. He faces more than two decades in prison if convicted on all charge.