Jackson witness indicted for bank robbery
(CNN) -- With prosecutors poised to call him to the stand, the legal woes for a key prosecution witness in the Michael Jackson trial continue to mount.
Christopher Carter, 25, a former Jackson bodyguard who has said he saw the pop star drinking alcohol with his teenage accuser, has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Nevada on charges he robbed two Las Vegas banks.
He had previously been indicted by a state grand jury on 15 felony charges stemming from a string of armed robberies in Las Vegas.
Over the weekend, Carter was transported from Las Vegas to Santa Maria, under court order, to testify in the Jackson trial. However, his attorney has said he will urge Carter to invoke his Fifth Amendment right to refuse to testify because he could be questioned about the charges he faces in Nevada.
Carter's testimony is important to the prosecution because he can corroborate the accuser's testimony that Jackson gave the boy alcohol, as the indictment against Jackson alleges.
In his testimony to the grand jury that indicted Jackson, Carter said he met the entertainer at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas and worked as a security guard for him from August 2002 to August 2003.
He testified that he saw both Jackson and his accuser drinking alcohol from soda cans while on a flight from Miami to California in February 2003. He also said he saw the boy "stumbling" drunk one afternoon at Jackson's Neverland ranch, and the boy indicated to him that Jackson condoned his drinking.
In his grand jury testimony, Carter also said that after the trip from Miami, the accuser's mother asked him to take her off the ranch in the middle of the night, without her children. She was upset and prayed throughout the drive to Los Angeles, he said.
The prosecution contends that the accuser and his family were held against their will at Neverland by Jackson's associates after the Miami trip and that the mother was fearful for their safety.
Carter also told the grand jury that Jackson had the ability to monitor phone conversations at Neverland and once showed him a tape he had made of a phone conversation he had recorded.
The federal indictment charges Carter with robbing a Citibank branch in May 2004 and a Bank of Commerce branch in January 2005. In addition to two counts of armed bank robbery, he faces two counts of using a firearm during a crime of violence.
CNN's Stan Wilson contributed to this report.
