Witness says Jackson groped him too

SANTA MARIA, California - A 24-year-old man has broken down in tears while telling jurors that Michael Jackson fondled him three times when he was young, twice paying him not to tell his mother.

The witness, the son of a former Jackson maid, faltered as he related the incidents on Monday to a courtroom packed with reporters and Jackson's fans. The 46-year-old pop star sat quietly at the defence table.

"This is so much harder than I thought," the man, now a youth counsellor and auto parts salesman who settled a civil case with Jackson for about US$2 million in the mid-1990s, said before asking for a break and dabbing his eyes with a tissue.

He told the hushed courtroom that each incident began as a game of tickling and ended with the pop star groping his genitals, twice over his clothes and once inside his shorts.

After each of the first two incidents, he said, Jackson gave him a $100 bill that came with an admonition: "Don't tell your mom."

The young man was the first in a series of witnesses who are expected to testify about what prosecutors say is Jackson's history of sexual abuse or misbehaviour toward adolescent boys.

The testimony is expected to focus on five boys whom Jackson is accused of targeting, including "Home Alone" star Macaulay Culkin and a youth whose family settled a lawsuit with the entertainer for more than $20 million. Jackson was never charged in connection with any of the past accusations.

In the current case, the self-styled King of Pop is charged with molesting a 13-year-old boy at his Neverland Valley Ranch in central California, plying the youth with alcohol in order to abuse him and conspiring to commit false imprisonment, child abduction and extortion.

Jackson, who has pleaded innocent, faces more than 20 years in prison if convicted on all charges.

The 24-year-old said the first incident of abuse began as a tickling game when he was about 7 years old and sitting in Jackson's lap at a Los Angeles apartment he knew as the singer's "hideaway."

"I'm tickling and he's tickling, and it eventually moved down to my little private region ... my crotch area. You're seven. I didn't think it was wrong," he said under questioning from Deputy District Attorney Ron Zonen.

The second incident was similar, he said, though this time he was about 8 and the pair were lying on a sleeping bag on the floor of the apartment, "spooning". Jackson lay behind and against the boy, then began tickling him again before grabbing his genitals through his clothes, the accuser said.

The final episode occurred in a loft area at Neverland while the pair were lying on a couch, the court heard. Jackson again spooned the boy, the jury was told, and then began to tickle the then-10-year-old, but this time, the man said, the pop icon's hands made their way inside his shorts to fondle his testicles.

On cross-examination, the young man conceded that he initially denied being molested by Jackson when he was questioned by police at the age of 13. He was embarrassed into silence, he told the jury.

His testimony echoed that of Jackson's current accuser, who is now 15 and told jurors earlier in the trial that he refused to admit being sexually abused by the singer when confronted by a school official.

Jackson fans, who spent the weekend rallying support for their idol, turned up in court dressed in white and occasionally snickered as Mesereau cross-examined the man - at one point earning a rebuke from Superior Court Judge Rodney Melville that they would be thrown out if laughter continued.

- REUTERS