Employees Tried to Keep Officers Out of Jackson’s Offices

Two of Michael Jackson’s longtime ranch employees said in court Friday that they tried to keep officers last November from searching the singer’s office, his video library and other parts of the massive estate they believed were not covered by a search warrant.

However, investigators who were at the scene testified the search was properly conducted, despite the employees’ interpretation of the warrant.

The legal jousting was part of a defense effort to have 120 items of potential evidence thrown out before Jackson’s trial on child molestation charges, which is scheduled to start Jan. 31.

At issue Friday was whether the 70 or so officers who massed at Jackson’s ranch Nov. 18 had the right to seize material from a two-story building adjacent to the star’s palatial home, which a judge had given them permission to search.

The 4,000-square-foot structure was described in the warrant as a “security headquarters,” but in addition to a small security office, it housed Jackson’s personal office, an apartment and a video library that a witness said was like a Blockbuster video outlet.

On the witness stand, ranch manager Joe Marcus said he protested officers’ entry into the building, but was told by a sheriff’s investigator that a judge would later approve an “addendum” to the warrant.

His account was echoed by Violet Silva, the head of ranch security. She said that when the search of the building started, she asked Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Lt. Jeff Klapakis if he had the addendum.

Klapakis didn’t answer, she said, but gestured as if to say “that he didn’t get one, that he was going to do what he was going to do.”

Testifying Friday, Klapakis said he never told the ranch employees anything about asking a judge to expand the search warrant. He acknowledged that they objected, but said Marcus complied without protest when asked to unlock Jackson’s office door.

Prosecutors also raised the possibility that officers had thought Jackson’s office was the security office they had permission to search. Although an anteroom was cluttered with life-size mannequins of movie and cartoon figures, the office itself had a desk and seven 42-inch flat-screen TVs on the walls. However, no surveillance equipment was connected to them.

The items seized at Neverland have not been disclosed, but a number of them were mentioned by attorneys in court.

Depicting the search as illegally broad, the defense team asked why investigators took from Jackson’s bedroom a copy of the Robb Report, a glossy magazine about the lifestyles of the very rich. The copy they seized had a telephone number for Mohamed Al-Fayed, presumably the Egyptian-born tycoon, on it.

Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Det. Paul Zelis explained that “we had a person named Al that was part of this investigation. I wasn’t sure if it was the same person.”

Prosecutors alluded to the seizure of a cassette recorder from an open safe in Jackson’s office. Sheriff’s Deputy Ross Ruth played it after he found it.

A child’s voice came from the machine, Ruth said, although he couldn’t tell whether it was a boy or a girl. Alarm bells like those in Jackson’s bedroom were ringing in the background, but the voice, evidently in response to someone on a phone, said, “I’m outside.”

“I’ve got to go,” the voice said. “Somebody’s coming.”