| Pop superstar Michael Jackson, a self-styled "Peter Pan" whose relationship with children has long been controversial, was ordered on Wednesday to surrender to California authorities to face multiple charges of child molestation, officials said.
Law enforcement officials who spent more than 14 hours on Tuesday searching Jackson's sprawling Neverland ranch near Santa Barbara, central California, gave no details of the case -- including whether it involved one or more children -- but said an arrest warrant had been issued against the singer.
"An arrest warrant for Mr. Jackson has been issued on multiple counts of child molestation. The bail amount on the warrant has been set at $3 million," Santa Barbara County Sheriff Jim Anderson said.
"In a very short period of time there will be charges filed against Mr. Jackson," Anderson said.
Jackson was in Las Vegas shooting a music video when his ranch was raided. His spokesman on Wednesday called the allegations false, scurrilous and without foundation.
"The outrageous allegations against Michael Jackson are false. Michael would never harm a child in any way. These scurrilous and totally unfounded allegations will be proven false in a courtroom," spokesman Stuart Backerman said in a statement.
Backerman said Jackson had made arrangements with the District Attorney in Santa Barbara to return to the city "to immediately confront and prove these charges unfounded."
Police declined to name the alleged victim or victims. Media reports have said they involve a 12-year-old boy.
They added that the charges did not involve oral copulation but would be brought under a section of the California penal code outlawing "lewd acts" on children under 14 "with the intent of arousing, appealing to, or gratifying ... lust, passions or sexual desires." The charges specified carry a minimum of 3 years in jail and a maximum of 8.
SIMILAR ALLEGATIONS
Jackson was the subject of similar allegations 10 years ago by a 14-year-old boy. But criminal charges were never filed, and Jackson was never arrested, because the accuser declined to testify. Jackson later reached a multimillion-dollar out-of-court civil settlement with the boy's family.
Santa Barbara District Attorney Thomas Sneddon told the news conference that the current case was different because "we have a cooperative victim in this particular proceeding." He also said the laws have been tightened up in the past decade because of the Jackson case, and added that there was a public feeling that the singer had evaded prosecution last time.
Us magazine journalist Ian Drew, who has known the singer since 1998, quoted sources close to him as saying Jackson "was incredibly angry and had done nothing wrong." He added that Jackson wanted to make his surrender to authorities as low key and as private as possible.
Jackson said in a statement on Tuesday that he was unaware of the nature of the current investigation and suggested that it had been deliberately timed to undermine the release on Tuesday of a new compilation of his greatest hits.
"These characters always seem to surface with a dreadful allegation just as another project, an album, a video, is being released," Jackson said in the statement.
Sneddon dismissed Jackson's claims, saying the investigation had been underway for months.
"Jackson himself, I believe, has said this was all done to ruin his new CD that was coming ... like, the sheriff and I are really into that kind of music," Sneddon said.
It has been a tumultuous year for Jackson, whose talents as an entertainer have been eclipsed by his bizarre personal life. In February, he spoke in a British television documentary of sometimes sharing his Neverland bedroom with young boys.
In November last year, Jackson stunned fans in Berlin by dangling his barefoot baby from a hotel balcony. In June, he settled a $12 million breach of contract lawsuit by his former top advisor, avoiding a trial that threatened to expose details of his financial empire.
Source: Reuters | |
