SANTA MARIA, Calif. – Michael Jackson, the pop superstar who is one of the best-selling recording artists of all time, was acquitted yesterday of all 10 charges of conspiracy, plying a minor with alcohol, attempted child molestation, and molesting a then-13-year-old cancer patient from Los Angeles.

Mr. Jackson dabbed at his eyes after his defense team won a clean sweep on all charges. The verdicts were greeted by joyous whoops and shouts from the hundreds of fans keeping vigil outside the courtroom.

The verdict, reached after more than 32 hours of deliberations in Santa Barbara County Superior Court, brought to a close a more than four-month trial with 140 witnesses – including defense testimony from celebrities Macaulay Culkin, Chris Tucker, and Jay Leno.

From the start, the case was marked by odd moments. Mr. Jackson danced on the roof of his SUV after his arraignment, cheered on by fans who had come from as far away as Europe and Japan. Then he invited everyone to picnic at his Neverland ranch, the sprawling 2,700-acre compound in the Santa Ynez Valley where the abuse was alleged to have taken place.

On another occasion, six of Mr. Jackson’s siblings – including Janet – showed up in court in bright white outfits that matched their famous brother’s. Nation of Islam members were briefly a visible part of his entourage.

In March, on the day his accuser testified, Mr. Jackson rushed to court wearing blue pajama bottoms after the judge issued a warrant for his arrest. Mr. Jackson had failed to show up on time after he sought treatment at a hospital for what his spokesmen said was back pain.

The case against Mr. Jackson hinged on irreconcilable portrayals of his character and behavior: Prosecutors described a cunning sexual predator who targeted young boys from troubled backgrounds; the defense depicted a childlike innocent who was an easy mark for a family of liars and con artists.

As they made their closing arguments, both Santa Barbara County Senior Deputy District Attorney Ronald Zonen and Mr. Jackson’s defense lawyer, Thomas Mesereau Jr., asked jurors to use their common sense to decide which portrait was accurate.

Prosecutors argued that Mr. Jackson had honed his seduction and molestation of teen or pre-teen boys into a well-defined pattern. Two previous times, Mr. Jackson had paid settlements to boys after allegations of molestation – more than $20 million in one case and roughly $2 million in the other, although jurors were not allowed the hear the amounts.

California law allowed the prosecutors to present witnesses regarding those cases and other alleged sexual abuse by Mr. Jackson. In all, prosecutors alleged that Mr. Jackson molested five other boys in the 1990s before abusing his current accuser in 2003.

Prosecutors said the alleged victim in this case, who was being treated for cancer when he met Mr. Jackson, shared characteristics with several of those boys. He looked like them. He came from a broken home. His mother grew to trust Mr. Jackson after he had befriended her family, showering them with attention and gifts.

The reality, prosecutors said, was that Mr. Jackson was sharing his bed with the boy, showing him pornography, giving him alcohol, telling him that boys who don’t masturbate grow up to rape women or have sex with animals.

On four occasions, prosecutors charged, Mr. Jackson sexually molested the boy. On another, he allegedly tried, but the boy stopped him.

Mr. Jackson’s attorneys depicted the accusers as a family of liars trying to pull off “the biggest con of their careers.” In particular, they sought to shift jurors’ attention away from Mr. Jackson and onto the accuser’s mother. They stressed that she had committed welfare fraud and, according to one defense witness, had fabricated evidence to win a settlement in an unrelated case.

“Greed begets greed,” Mr. Mesereau said. In the past, he said, Mr. Jackson had been the victim of bad advice, settling other cases of false accusations. Failing to fight those allegations had made Jackson vulnerable to extortion, he said.

Mr. Mesereau insisted the prosecution’s timeline was nonsensical. Prosecutors said the fondling took place weeks after the airing of a British documentary about Mr. Jackson. The documentary – a rare look at the reclusive star’s lifestyle – triggered widespread outrage after Mr. Jackson unrepentantly admitted that he often shared his bed with boys in what he described as nonsexual sleepovers.

Why, Mr. Mesereau asked, would Mr. Jackson have molested his accuser at the same time that Los Angeles social workers were investigating his activities with children – a direct result of the broadcast?

“It’s absurd. It’s unrealistic. It makes no sense, because the whole case makes no sense,” Mr. Mesereau said in his closing argument. The accuser had been caught in numerous lies, he told jurors, reminding them that only one lie should be enough to create reasonable doubt.

Ironically, even as Mr. Mesereau built a case that the accuser and his mother had plotted to extort money from Mr. Jackson, he opened the door for what became some of the most damaging evidence against his client: the accuser’s first interview with detectives.

The boy, now 15, had seemed prickly and at times evasive on the witness stand. He came across very differently in the videotaped interview made two years ago. Speaking haltingly to Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s deputies, he seemed reluctant to talk about what had happened. At the end, he pleaded with investigators not to tell his mother – a request that seemed to contradict defense claims that she had coached the boy on what to tell police.

The tape, presented during the prosecution’s rebuttal, was the last evidence jurors heard before closing arguments.