Ex-Guard Claims He Saw Jackson Abuse Boy

Adrian McManus testified that she lied in a 1993 deposition. (Pool Photo Phil Klein)

SANTA MARIA, Calif., April 7 -- A former security guard for Michael Jackson testified Thursday that he witnessed the pop star molesting a boy in the early '90s. Later in the day he faced withering attacks from the defense about a wrongful-termination lawsuit he had filed against Jackson, in which he'd allegedly hoped to make more than $16 million.

Ralph Chacon said on the stand that one night during his graveyard shift he watched through a window on Jackson's Neverland Ranch as the famous entertainer performed oral sex on the boy, then 9 or 10, after Jackson and the boy had bathed in a Jacuzzi and then showered in a bathroom outside the main residence. "I saw that Mr. Jackson was caressing the boy's hair," Chacon said, going on to describe the alleged incident in precise, graphic language.

About a month later, Chacon testified, he saw Jackson and the same boy looking at an illuminated Peter Pan window display at Neverland; Jackson kissed the boy passionately, Chacon said, and then put his hand on the boy's "crotch."

This week the prosecution began a trial-within-a-trial, calling witnesses to describe incidents from Jackson's past, which California law allows in cases of sexual abuse. They hope to show that Jackson engaged in a pattern of inappropriate activity with five boys, which could make the jury more likely to convict him on charges he molested the then-13-year-old accuser at the center of the current case. The boy whom Chacon claimed he saw Jackson abusing received a financial settlement from Jackson in 1994, reportedly for $20 million.

Later Thursday, a former maid at Jackson's estate testified that she saw Jackson inappropriately touching three boys during separate incidents, including the boy with whom Jackson allegedly showered and former child star Macaulay Culkin, known for his role in the "Home Alone" movie series.

Adrian Marie McManus, the third former Jackson maid to testify for the prosecution, said she saw Jackson kissing Culkin on the cheek and touching his "rear end." In a television interview last year, Culkin denied that Jackson ever did anything improper to him.

Both McManus and Chacon were part of a lawsuit brought against Jackson by five Neverland employees in the mid-1990s. Jackson countersued. The employees lost their lawsuit, and, according to testimony Thursday, Chacon and McManus were found guilty of stealing items from Jackson's house amounting to more than $50,000. They were ordered to pay the pop star more than $1 million in legal fees.

"After a six-month trial, this is a good way of getting even with him, isn't it?" defense attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr. asked Chacon.

Tom Sneddon, Santa Barbara County district attorney, objected and Judge Rodney S. Melville ordered the question stricken from the record.

Under aggressive cross-examination from Mesereau, McManus and Chacon admitted that before their lawsuit, they'd taken part in a tabloid interview for which they were paid thousands of dollars. McManus also admitted that before she brought the suit against Jackson, she and her husband were found to have defrauded a relative's children of money from their estate.

The former maid also testified that she took a sketch she believed Jackson had made of Elvis Presley and gave it to a tabloid reporter. McManus claimed she took it from the trash at Neverland because she thought it was "pretty," but under cross-examination she admitted that the jury in the employees' civil trial concluded that she'd stolen the sketch and owed Jackson $35,000 as a result.

Mesereau has repeatedly attacked the motivations of the prosecution's witnesses, painting many of them as rabid money-seekers.

Mesereau also went after McManus for having stated in a 1993 deposition that she'd never seen Jackson abuse children.

"I didn't tell the truth. . . . I said I didn't see anything," McManus testified, adding that she lied because Jackson "threatened me." She said Jackson previously told her that if she said something he didn't like, other employees "will take care of you, but it wouldn't come from me."

Despite the threat, she kept working for Jackson, she said, because her husband had been laid off and "I had a house payment and I just stayed." McManus appeared to suck on a piece of candy or gum during cross-examination, making smacking noises into the microphone.

Thursday's witnesses painted a portrait of Jackson's longtime home in northern Santa Barbara County as a lawless place where children ran wild and a band of armed security personnel harassed the other workers on the ranch. McManus testified that she never saw Jackson discipline his young guests, and that Culkin was particularly "wild."

On one occasion, she said, Culkin ran upstairs to an upper level in the Neverland theater with a soda and "dumped it onto Mr. Jackson's head, along with the popcorn." She said Jackson treated the incident "as if it was funny." She said she had to clean it up.

She said that while cleaning the Jacuzzi in Jackson's private suite, on more than one occasion she found the entertainer's underwear and the underwear of his young male guests.

Chacon, who said he did not carry a gun as part of his Neverland responsibilities, testified that he had an argument at one point with one of Jackson's armed guards. He said the man touched his own weapon and said, "I'm in charge here." At another time, he testified, a man he believed to be one of the armed guards called him and said, "I'm going to kill you." He suspected that his phone conversations at the ranch were being monitored.

In navy blue suit and gold armband, Jackson appeared frail as he left court Thursday, walking hunched over with his hands pressed together. He was accompanied by his parents, who had been sitting behind him in the court's public gallery. (His mother reportedly left the courtroom shortly before the graphic testimony began.) A reporter asked if he was embarrassed for his mother to hear the day's explicit testimony.

He said simply, "I love my mother."