Jacko hearing turning into greatest court show on earth

LOS ANGELES - Every available hotel room has been booked for months, the television networks have staked out their spots and the barricades are ready to go up around the courthouse.

The atmosphere is tense as the little town of Santa Maria prepares for the invasion of thousands of journalists and sightseers when the trial of Michael Jackson begins in a fortnight.

Jackson's brother Jerome has claimed that "many people are travelling from around the globe to support him".

Officials are taking the warning to heart. They do not want a repeat of the scenes at Jackson's arraignment a year ago when hundreds of fans cheered him and surged on to the street as he danced on the roof of a van.

"We weren't happy at all about that and hope Mr Jackson doesn't try anything like it again," said Santa Maria police spokesman Lieutenant Chris Vaughn. He said that this time the Jackson family and their followers, who previously organised rented buses into a "convoy of love", would be urged to arrive with fewer vehicles and take "a more direct route" to the courthouse. Fans will this time be kept behind barricades across the street from the courthouse instead of being allowed to mill around on the grounds.

Cameras are barred from the 60-seat courtroom, but BSkyB and America's E! Entertainment network have found a way around the ban, by showing daily re-enactments of the trial.

Jackson, 46, has pleaded not guilty to charges of molesting a 13-year-old boy and conspiring to commit child abduction.

He also faces charges of administering an intoxicating agent - liquor he allegedly served in soda cans to boy visitors to his Neverland ranch - and extortion.

The trial is expected to contain some sensational and disturbing evidence about Jackson's alleged sexual proclivities, although Judge Rodney Melville still has to rule on whether prosecutors can raise previous, unproved accusations against the pop star.

Prosecutors want to present evidence showing that Jackson has sexually abused boys in the past.

In 1993 he was investigated by two grand juries for allegedly molesting a teenager, but the case fell apart after a multimillion-dollar settlement with the boy's family. Under a 1996 California law judges may allow such "propensity" evidence in trials of alleged sex crimes.

Although specific details of the molestation charges have been kept secret by the judge, much of the prosecution's case has leaked out through confidential law enforcement and Government reports and court records.

According to those who have seen the documents, Jackson is portrayed as a predator who plied children with wine and spirits and gave them nicknames such as "Doo Doo Head" and "Blowhole".

The prosecution case reportedly rests largely on accounts provided to investigators by the teenage boy and his younger brother, older sister and mother.

 

- INDEPENDENT