Boy’s mother calls Neverland den of booze and porn

SANTA MARIA, California - Michael Jackson's Neverland ranch is a den of "booze, pornography and sex with boys" jurors in the singer's trial were told today by the woman whose son has accused the singer of molestation.

In a feisty exchange with Jackson's lead defence attorney Tom Mesereau, the woman said the singer's associates had told her the pop star never touched alcohol, but she said she knew now that was not true.

"Now I know that Neverland is all about booze, pornography and sex with boys," she said.

Jackson, sitting at the defence table across the room, silently shook his head as the woman spoke, and Judge Rodney Melville struck the comment from the record.

It was the defence team's first crack at the woman whom they claim orchestrated a plot to wring a lucrative financial settlement out of Jackson.

The 46-year-old American entertainer has pleaded innocent to all charges and faces two decades in jail if he is convicted.

Prosecutors charge that Jackson sexually molested the then-13-year-old boy in early 2003 at Neverland at a time when Jackson's aides were trying to coerce the boy's family into participating in a video that would help shore up the singer's public image.

Mesereau used his cross-examination to press the woman to admit that she could still sue Jackson, and he pointed to a previous sexual harassment suit she filed against retailer J C Penney after she was detained on suspicion of shoplifting.

The woman later won US$152,000 in a legal settlement with the department store chain.

"We will never file a claim against Mr Jackson. I want justice here," said the mother, who took the stand for the first time this past Wednesday and whose testimony has been marked sometimes by rambling and emotional outbursts.

Jackson's lawyers have painted the woman as a schemer, who used her children to get close to celebrities and who enjoyed her time with Jackson before turning on him.

Mesereau pointed to receipts for spa treatments paid for by Jackson as evidence, to which the woman said that Jackson was able to "choreograph everything".

"How about you?" shot back Mesereau.

At another point when the woman called herself a "poor actress". Mesereau responded, "No, I think you are a good one. "

Their bickering repeatedly drew Judge Melville into the fray. He admonished Mesereau to act professionally and told the witness to listen and answer the questions.

"And you are not to get into arguments with him, it's as much your fault," Melville told the woman at one point when he admonished both sides.

- REUTERS