SANTA MARIA, May 5: The judge in Michael Jackson’s trial on Thursday declined a defence motion to dismiss the charges in the child molestation case against the 46-year-old entertainer. Prosecutors rested their case on Wednesday two months into the trial, and defence lawyers began calling witnesses, including some of the men prosecutors say Jackson molested as boys over the past decade.

Santa Barbara County Superior Court Judge Rodney Melville ruled from the bench in denying the defense motion for mistrial and acquittal without explanation. The bid by Jackson’s lawyers to have the charges thrown out had been seen as a longshot, although some analysts have challenged the strength of the case brought by lead prosecutor Tom Sneddon.

Sneddon summoned some 85 witnesses and introduced more than 500 pieces of evidence as he tried to prove Jackson molested a then 13-year-old boy after plying him with alcohol and conspiring to hold him and his family captive in 2003. Defense lawyer Robert Sanger offered a blistering assessment of the prosecution case on Thursday, saying it was supported only by the testimony of liars and those who had said things on the stand that contradicted prosecution claims.

Every witness called by prosecutors to support past claims of abuse had either sued the one-time “King of Pop” or sold stories to the tabloids, he said. “If key witnesses have been woefully false and other witnesses have self-destructed, what is this case all about?” Sanger said. Defence lawyers called Wade Robson, a 22-year-old, Australian-born choreographer and dancer, who had met Jackson as a child, as their first witness. —Reuters