SANTA MARIA, California (AP) – The judge in Michael Jackson’s child molestation trial said yesterday he may sanction lead defence attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr for misrepresenting the terms under which the pop star waived confidentiality with former lawyer Mark Geragos.

“I feel deceived by Mr Mesereau and I am considering … sanctions of some sort against Mr Mesereau,” Superior Court Judge Rodney S Melville said in a hearing before Geragos resumed testifying.

Jackson waived attorney-client privilege only for the period up until his arrest in November 2003, but that limit was not disclosed until Geragos mentioned it while testifying last week.

The prosecution and the judge were surprised by the limitation, and at the time Mesereau apologised, saying he had not thought the period after arrest was relevant.

When testimony resumed, Senior Deputy District Attorney Ron Zonen asked Geragos about surveillance conducted on the accuser’s family by a private investigator, Bradley Miller.

Geragos said he hired the investigator because he was concerned the family might go to tabloids to sell a false story or to an attorney to try to sue Jackson.

“I told him, ‘Find out who they’re meeting with and what they’re doing’,” Geragos said.

Jackson, 46, is accused of molesting a 13 year-old boy in February or March 2003, plying him with wine and conspiring to hold the boy’s family captive. Prosecutors said he wanted them to rebut a TV documentary in which Jackson said he let children sleep in his bed, but it was non-sexual.

Prosecutors have shown surveillance videotapes to suggest that Jackson and his associates were plotting to hold the family captive, and the mother has testified she feared her parents and her boyfriend would be in danger if she didn’t co-operate with Jackson.