Guard Says Boy Abused by Jackson

In graphic testimony Thursday, a former security guard at Michael Jackson’s Neverland ranch described watching the pop star kiss, caress and perform a sex act on a nude young boy after the pair had showered together.

Ralph Chacon’s abuse allegation was the most vivid to emerge in the pop star’s child-molestation trial, which had focused largely on claims that Jackson groped and masturbated young boys in darkened rooms or under covers.

Jackson attorney Thomas A. Mesereau Jr. pointed out that Chacon and four other former Neverland employees had sold their stories to tabloid newspapers and TV shows before filing a wrongful-termination lawsuit against the singer. The litigation ended with a $1.4-million judgment in Jackson’s favor.

“After a six-month trial, this is a good way to get even with him, isn’t it?” Mesereau asked the witness.

Chacon denied being driven by greed or revenge.

The incidents described in court Thursday allegedly occurred more than 10 years ago but were used to bolster the current charge that Jackson molested a 13-year-old Los Angeles boy in 2003. In sex-offense trials, state law allows prosecutors to introduce past allegations in an effort to show a pattern of conduct.

Jurors were attentive and stony-faced during Thursday’s testimony, taking notes rapidly as Chacon recounted the alleged abuse. Jackson’s mother, Katherine, and older brother Tito left the courtroom during Chacon’s testimony.

But they returned after Chacon was followed to the stand by Adrian McManus, a former Jackson housekeeper who said she saw Jackson kiss and grope three boys during the four years that she worked for him. She also testified that she saw Jackson share his bed at different times with at least four boys and that she regularly found underwear belonging to both Jackson and the boys in the singer’s bedroom hot tub.

Mesereau confronted McManus with a 1993 legal deposition in which she said that she never had seen Jackson behave inappropriately with boys.

On Thursday, McManus said she had been scared to tell the truth because Jackson had threatened her when she took the job cleaning his bedroom suite. She said Jackson mentioned four people who would harm her if she ever did or said anything he didn’t like.

“He said, ‘All I have to do is tell [them] and they would take care of you.’ ” she said.

Jackson later asked to see a copy of her deposition, she said. He was so pleased that he gave her three $100 bills and a card that said, “Thanks for everything,” McManus testified.

The beefy Chacon, who did auto repossessions in Thousand Oaks before signing on at Neverland in 1991, said that one night in late 1992 or early 1993 he saw Jackson and a boy showering in a restroom at the ranch’s video arcade after using an outdoor Jacuzzi together.

Chacon said he started to leave but didn’t.

“I was thinking, what’s going on here? There’s a grown man in the shower with a boy,” he testified. “It wasn’t right.”

Peeking through a restroom window, he said he saw the two outside the shower, naked. Jackson was bending down, kissing and fondling the boy all over, sucking his nipples and, finally, performing oral sex on him, Chacon testified.

Chacon said he left but later saw Jackson giving the boy a piggyback ride back to the main house. Both were clad in towels, he said.

The boy, the son of a dentist from Brentwood, received a multimillion-dollar settlement from Jackson in 1994 after suing over alleged molestation. He is not expected to testify in the current trial.

On another night, Chacon said he saw Jackson and a different boy get out of the “Moon Rover,” a golf cart designed for the singer. In a breezeway outside Neverland’s main house, they peered into the ranch’s Peter Pan display window and gazed silently at an electronic Tinkerbell flitting about, he said.

After a quick but “passionate” kiss, Chacon said Jackson ran his hand down from the boy’s shoulder, slipping it inside the front of his pants. The two immediately retired into the main house, the ex-guard said.

McManus said she saw Jackson kissing and touching three boys on separate occasions during the time she worked at Neverland. The former housekeeper said she was upstairs in Jackson’s two-story bedroom suite when she saw the pop star kissing the dentist’s son on the mouth and fondling the boy’s crotch over his clothing.

“I was kind of shocked. I blushed. I stayed where I was at. I didn’t say anything,” she testified.

Another time, in Jackson’s library, McManus said, she saw Jackson kiss child actor Macaulay Culkin on the cheek and put his hand on the boy’s leg, “by his rear end.” Culkin has denied being molested.

She also said she saw Jackson walking down a flight of stairs with a third boy, kissing him on the cheek and putting his hand on the boy’s rear.

Neither she nor Chacon contacted police.

“A lot of things went through my mind,” Chacon testified. “One was, who would believe me?”

Mesereau attacked Chacon and McManus as greedy opportunists who had long been seeking to cash in on the molestation claims against their ex-boss.

In 1997, the ex-employees known at the time as the Neverland Five lost their suit against Jackson after a six-month trial in Santa Maria.

A countersuit from the entertainer ended in an order requiring the ex-employees to pay $1.4 million toward Jackson’s legal fees. In addition, McManus was ordered to pay $35,000 for allegedly stealing a sketch by Jackson of Elvis Presley, and Chacon was ordered to pay $25,000 for taking candy and personal documents from Jackson.

Chacon, who went on to work as a substitute teacher in Nevada, said he filed for bankruptcy as a result. McManus said she still owes Jackson the money and that the pop singer once attached her wages at a Sears store to collect the debt.

Mesereau hammered Chacon with questions suggesting that he had made up the incidents to make a quick buck.

The lawyer pointed to problems that Chacon had paying back rent and making child-support payments. Over the objection of prosecutors, he said: “You tried to extort Mr. Jackson, didn’t you?”

Chacon said he was only speaking the truth.