Child Molesters, Child Abuse Effects: Bulimia, Eating Disorders, Addictions

Jackson, 46, is accused in a 10-count indictment of plying a then-13-year-old boy with alcohol and molesting him while the youngster and his family were staying at the entertainer's Neverland Valley Ranch in early 2003.

Jackson was never charged in connection with the past accusations. However, prosecutors want to convince jurors that the self-proclaimed "King of Pop" has a pattern of behavior toward young boys -- evidence legal experts say could be devastating to his defense.

After about 90 minutes of sometimes-impassioned arguments on both sides, Santa Barbara County Superior Court Judge Rodney Melville sided with prosecutors. The issue was "of great importance in this case to both sides," he said.

"I'm going to permit testimony with regard to sexual offenses," Melville said.

The judge said he also would permit prosecutors to try to show that the 46-year-old entertainer had a history of "grooming" his alleged victims for abuse by lavishing time and attention on them in order to win their trust.

With jurors out of the courtroom, defense lawyers sought to block such testimony, arguing that prosecutors were trying to bring in a parade of witnesses with grudges against Jackson.

Attorney Tom Mesereau said that a grand jury never returned an indictment against Jackson in the 1993 case and that only one of the alleged prior victims has agreed to take the witness stand.

"You have what is in effect a very problematic case, and I submit the prosecution knows that," Mesereau said.

Jackson's accuser in the current case, along with the boy's brother and sister, had all "lied repeatedly," Mesereau said, adding that the inconsistencies in their testimony would worsen once the accuser's mother took the stand.
District Attorney Tom Sneddon shot back that Jackson's accuser had never wavered under cross-examination.

Mesereau, he said, had been "as abusive, as mean-spirited and obnoxious as you can be to a child witness, and I think it was a remarkable job this kid did. He was never once tripped up about the central fact of the case -- that he was molested."

Jackson, who faces more than 20 years in prison if convicted on all of the counts against him, has pleaded innocent and repeated in a radio interview on Sunday that the charges against him were "totally fabricated."

His lawyers have argued that the mother of Jackson's now 15-year-old accuser invented the abuse claims after latching on to the entertainer in a bid to get money from him.

They also have painted Sneddon as an overzealous prosecutor, intent on taking down Jackson at all costs, especially after his attempt to bring charges a decade earlier failed.