A teenager on Wednesday admitted giving authorities contradictory accounts of seeing Michael Jackson sexually molest his then 13-year-old brother in the superstar's bed.
While grilling the 14-year-old brother of Jackson's accuser for a second day, defence lawyer Thomas Mesereau doggedly sought to show trial jurors that the boy had lied under oath.
The chubby teenager is one of the most important witnesses in the molestation trial of the 1980s icon, who could be jailed for up to 20 years if convicted.
Jackson's lawyer threw the spotlight on inconsistencies in the versions of the alleged sex abuse and underage drinking with the superstar that the boy first offered police, then a grand jury hearing and finally the trial jury.
Mesereau zeroed in on the fact that the boy told sheriffs that he had seen Jackson masturbating his brother at Neverland Ranch two years ago, but told the trial jury this week that the star was masturbating himself.
"Why did you tell the sheriff's department a different version?" Mesereau said while cross-examining the teenager, the only eyewitness to the sex abuse of the teenage cancer patient.
"I was nervous when I was doing the interview," the boy replied.
"So because you were nervous you didn't get the facts right?" Mesereau asked the youngster. "Yes," the boy replied.
On Monday, the youth had recounted entering Jackson's bedroom and seeing the pop star lying on his back on the bed beside his brother, who was "curled up" and facing away from the entertainer with his eyes closed.
Jackson's had his left hand in his brother's underpants and was pleasuring himself with the other hand.
He said he saw an almost identical scene when he walked into the bedroom about two days later.
But Mesereau Wednesday read out previous testimony in which the boy claimed he had been sleeping on a couch in Jackson's bedroom before witnessing the 46-year-old star fondle his brother for the second time.
The youth had said he was on the couch when Jackson returned to the split-level bedroom at Neverland where his brother was already "knocked out" after allegedly drinking with Jackson.
But Mesereau suggested the boy, who admitted Tuesday he had lied under oath in a separate lawsuit when he was eight or nine, had not told the truth about what he had seen.
The lawyer also contended that it would have been almost impossible for the boy to catch Jackson in the act of molestation.
He got the boy to concede that the entrance star's bedroom was guarded with an alarm that warned of people approaching, a closed circuit television camera and sensors.
"So there were sensors that you tripped, an alarm that went off and the camera?" Mesereau asked the boy of the security arrangements outside the star's room.
The star's attorney also suggested the boy lied about testimony linked to the accusations that Jackson's served the children alcohol at Neverland Ranch and on his private jet.
Prosecutors claim Jackson served his accuser, who only had one kidney, wine, sometimes served in soft-drink cans and dubbed "Jesus juice," in order to seduce him.
But the defence maintains that the boys ran wild at Neverland, rifling through Jackson's drawers, wine cellar and collection of girlie magazines at will.
Mesereau suggested that the accuser's brother had lied about whether he knew how to get into Neverland's wine cellar.
The youth told the grand jury that issued an indictment against Jackson in April 2004 that he know where the key to the cellar was and knew how to get it, but told the trial jury that he did not know where the key was kept.
"Yesterday you said you didn't know where it was -- why did you lie?" Mesereau asked the boy after reading from his grand jury testimony.
"The key was on a hook but I didn't know where it was," the boy replied.
Under Mesereau's probing, the young witness earlier stumbled over the details of a raunchy magazine he claimed Jackson showed him and his brother, and admitted to lying under oath in a separate lawsuit against a department store five years ago.
"Did someone tell you to lie?" asked Mesereau, who has portrayed the boys' mother as a financial predator who coached her children to fabricate stories to win cash settlements in lawsuits.
"I don't remember," the boy said.
Jackson has denied all 10 charges, including child molestation, plying the boy with alcohol to seduce him and conspiring to kidnap the accuser and his family and hold them prisoner at Neverland.