Attorney says Jackson will not testify

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) May 24, 2005 -- Attorney says Jackson will not testify

SANTA MARIA, California (CNN) -- Talk-show host Jay Leno testified Tuesday that he received several phone messages from Michael Jackson's accuser in 2000 and talked to him briefly on the phone, but the comedian said neither the boy nor his family asked him for money.

"I was never asked for money," Leno told jurors in Jackson's child molestation trial, undercutting the defense's contention that the family had a habit of using the boy's bout with cancer to get money from celebrities.

However, Leno's testimony that he talked to the accuser contradicts what the boy said earlier in the trial when he denied speaking to the comedian, only leaving him a phone message.

Leno acknowledged that when police contacted him to ask if he thought the family was after money, he said, "I think so." But Tuesday he said that he had "assumed that" and no request for money was made.

Leno's testimony came as a Jackson attorney said Tuesday the defense would rest its case Wednesday -- without calling the pop star to the witness stand.

Defense attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr. told the judge comedian Chris Tucker, who took the stand late on Tuesday, would be its last witness.

In his opening statement, Mesereau suggested that Jackson would testify when he used the phrase "Michael Jackson will tell you" several times while addressing the jury.

Testifying for the defense Tuesday, Tucker said his first introduction to the family of Jackson's accuser was at the Laugh Factory, a Los Angeles comedy club.

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http://edition.cnn.com/2005/LAW/05/24/jackson.trial/index.html