by Marc Lavine
LOS ANGELES - Attorneys for Michael Jackson were expected to step up their courtroom grilling of his teenage accuser, as the pop idol's child sex abuse trial enters its third week Monday.
Jackson's lead lawyer Thomas Mesereau, who began his tough cross-examination of the alleged victim on Thursday, was due to resume questioning the confident 15-year-old boy who claims the singer abused him two years ago.
Jackson was not in the courtroom Friday, which was dedicated to defense and prosecution legal motions.
The break in testimony notwithstanding, the 46-year-old singer's child sex trial is moving ahead at lightning speed, with the most crucial witnesses having taken the stand in the first two weeks of trial.
The rapid progress came despite the superstar's dramatic pyjama-clad court appearance Thursday when he narrowly escaped jail time after showing up late to hear his alleged victim recount lurid details of the alleged sex abuse.
The evidentiary highlight of the densely-packed fortnight came when Jackson faced his accuser in court for the first time on Wednesday.
During two days of powerful testimony, the boy claimed the star had showed him porn, plied him with alcohol and masturbated him on at least two occasions.
The young cancer survivor followed his 14-year-old brother -- the only eye-witness to the alleged sexual assault at Jackson's Neverland Ranch two years ago -- and the boys' 18-year-old sister on the witness stand.
"It's been a turbulent two weeks" of the start of the trial, scheduled to last five months, said Loyola Marymount University law professor and former US federal prosecutor Laurie Levenson.
"What is amazing, is that we already have the bulk of the case presented to the jury through the most important witnesses in the case.
"The rest of it will be dressing or corroboration of that evidence by various experts, but the heart of it is already before the jurors," she told AFP.
The soft-spoken accuser told jurors that he had considered Jackson "the coolest guy in the world" after he invited the sick boy and his family to Neverland four years ago.
But, the youngster said, on that first visit, he, his younger brother and Jackson surfed Internet pornographic sites during a sleepover in the star's bedroom.
The youth also testified to frequent drinking bouts with Jackson, including wine drunk from soft-drink cans that the star allegedly dubbed "Jesus juice," and said Jackson had urged him never to speak of the alcoholic interludes.
In one of the most crucial moments of the trial, the short-haired youth described how he was molested on Jackson's bed at Neverland in February or March 2003.
"He told me that males have to masturbate. He said if I didn't know how then he would do it for me. He put his hands in my pants and he started masturbating me," he said of the first incident. The second incident took place a day later, he said.
But parts of the boy's confident testimony clashed with that of his younger brother, who earlier told jurors he had seen two incidents of abuse in Jackson's bedroom about two days apart.
The brother testified that on another occasion Jackson had walked naked in front of the boys with an erection, while the accuser said the star had not been aroused.
"We lost our erection somewhere during their testimony and even the prosecutor couldn't get it back," Levenson said. "There are so many inconsistencies between the boys' testimony and that is very good for the defence."
Jackson has denied 10 charges, including molestation, giving his accuser alcohol to seduce him, and plotting to kidnap the boy and his family and keep them prisoner at Neverland. He faces up to 20 years in jail if convicted.
The only central prosecution witness still to testify is the accuser's mother, whom Jackson's camp has painted as a greedy financial predator who coached her children to lie to win cash settlements in lawsuits.
But legal analysts speculated that prosecutors may not be quick to call the woman, as even prosecutor Tom Sneddon conceded in his opening remarks that the she has a checkered past.
In the first weeks of testimony, Jackson's lead lawyer, Mesereau, has emerged as one of the star performers of the trial, tearing away at the credibility of the accuser's two siblings without appearing to bully the youngsters.
But Mesereau's famously eccentric client very nearly landed himself in jail when he failed to turn up on time to hear his accuser testify.
Jackson's lawyers said the star was delayed by a pre-dawn trip to a hospital emergency room following a back injury sustained while dressing.
Furious trial Judge Rodney Melville, who keeps the proceedings moving at a solid pace, issued a warrant for Jackson's arrest and ordered his three million dollars bail forfeited unless he turned up within an hour.
The usually stylish star arrived at court minutes after the deadline passed wearing pyjama bottoms and slippers with his hair uncombed.
He sat through his accuser's testimony in apparent pain before the judge quashed the warrant and restored the star's bail.
"I think that the defence has a winnable case with an unwinnable client," Levenson said. "Mesereau is doing an excellent job, but some of his client's antics could undermine his case."

03/13/2005 18:10 GMT