Accuser: I Know More About Sex Than Jacko

FEBRUARY 27--The Los Angeles boy who has accused Michael Jackson of molestation told investigators that the singer was a naif when it came to "the birds and the bees," claiming that his alleged abuser "didn't know much. I knew more than he did."

The surprising appraisal from the boy, now 15, came during a January 19, 2004 interview with Santa Barbara Sheriff's Department officials, The Smoking Gun has learned.

At the interview's conclusion, a detective asked the child about conversations he had with Jackson about girls and any related guidance offered by the performer. The boy, who was 13 at the time of the alleged molestation, replied that Jackson would "always, like, try to give me" advice about "the birds and the bees."

However, the boy told investigators, "He didn't know much. I knew more than he did."

The Q&A session, which was audiotaped, came about two months prior to the child's initial appearance before the grand jury that later voted to indict Jackson on 10 felony counts. During his testimony, the boy occasionally appeared flippant while discussing the alleged sexual assaults and Jackson's provision of wine and assorted booze to him and his two siblings.

When District Attorney Tom Sneddon asked if he had ceased drinking alcohol after leaving Neverland Ranch for the last time, the boy responded, "That period of my life, I went to AA. That period of my life is over." To "make sure the record is clear," Sneddon asked the boy whether he was kidding about attending Alcoholics Anonymous. "I'm just joking," replied the accuser.

At another point during his testimony, the boy was asked to describe the alleged molestation incidents in Jackson's bedroom, which he did in graphic detail. The boy, who has been enrolled for years in a Navy sea cadets program, was then asked by Sneddon if anyone else had been present during the assaults. "No," the child answered, adding, "Not unless a Navy SEAL dropped down."

At the close of his first day of testimony, the boy received Sneddon's standard witness admonition that a judicial gag order barred him from talking to the media about his confidential testimony. "Oh man," the child replied, "I was going to have a press conference."

The grand jury transcript, which TSG exclusively obtained earlier this month, also reveals that sheriff's detectives interviewed a young friend of Jackson's during the November 2003 raid of his California estate.

The performer befriended the teenager, Omer Bhatti, in 1996 during a Tunisian stop on the singer's HIStory tour (the child, then a 12-year-old Jackson imitator, was apparently spotted in front of Jackson's hotel).

Investigator Jeffrey Ellis testified that when he "broached the subject of pornography," Bhatti became nervous and "seemed to have trouble forming a sentence. It was almost like a stutter." Ellis added that when he asked Bhatti a series of questions about the consumption of wine and alcohol and references to "Jesus Juice," he saw "that same type of uneasiness in him that I noticed when I started talking to him about pornography."

While prosecutors apparently sensed Bhatti had a story to tell, the Jackson crony appears only on the defense's list of prospective witnesses.