Jackson Groped Child Star Culkin, Ex-Staffer Says

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

SANTA MARIA, Calif., April 8 -- A former employee of Michael Jackson testified Friday that in the early 1990s he saw the entertainer inappropriately touching Macaulay Culkin while the child actor played a "Thriller" arcade game.

Phillip LeMarque, who spoke with a thick French accent and called himself a "major-domo food," described seeing the incident during a James Bond-like mission to deliver a late-night snack to the famous pop star.

He said he got a phone call from a security officer at 3 a.m., waking him from his bed on the grounds of Jackson's Neverland ranch.

"Silver Fox wants some french fries," LeMarque recalled the voice on the phone saying, explaining that security officers often used a code name for their boss.

LeMarque said he went to the "teepee area," where he expected to find Jackson, but found no one there. He called security again and was told to go to the estate's arcade. He said he found Jackson there, propping Culkin up so the boy could reach the game controls. One of Jackson's hands was around Culkin's waist, LeMarque said, and the other was inside the boy's shorts, in the boy's "crotch" area.

"I was shocked and I almost dropped the french fries," LeMarque testified, his accent so strong he was at times unintelligible. With thick black hair and a youthful face, he looked much younger than his 70 or so years.

LeMarque's testimony was part of a trial-within-a-trial the prosecution hopes will show that Jackson engaged in a pattern of inappropriate activity with five boys before the alleged abuse of the then-13-year-old at the center of the current case. (California is one of only a few states to allow testimony of allegations of past "bad acts" in sex abuse trials.)

In a television interview with CNN's Larry King last year, Culkin denied that Jackson ever did anything improper to him, and his publicist has said he's not expected to be a witness in this trial.

In an attempt to disarm the defense, which has tried to paint many of the prosecution witnesses as money-grubbing liars, a prosecution attorney asked LeMarque about a brief association he had with a media broker. LeMarque labeled the broker "some sleazy guy" and said he and his wife (a cook at Neverland) talked to the broker when they were considering selling a story about Jackson to tabloids.

"At the last minute, we never took a penny from anyone because it was against our principles," LeMarque said. "We were tempted by the money, for sure."

Under cross-examination by defense attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr., LeMarque said he believed that the media broker did eventually sell a story based on statements he had made, and the media broker obtained the quotes by secretly tape-recording him during a meeting LeMarque had with his lawyer. He admitted to Mesereau that the broker had offered him $100,000, and that he and his wife had asked for five times as much.

LeMarque said the man telephoned him recently. His wife picked up the phone and said, "Go to hell."

Earlier in the day, Mesereau finished questioning prosecution witness Adrian Marie McManus, who testified Thursday to seeing Jackson inappropriately touching three boys, including Culkin. McManus's credibility may have been damaged by her admission that she sold information about Jackson and his former wife, Lisa Marie Presley, to Star magazine -- in order to fund a lawsuit she and other Neverland employees brought against Jackson. They lost the suit and were ordered to pay Jackson more than $1 million.

Mesereau read the headline of a story and asked McManus if she recalled being quoted in it: "Five of his Closest Servants Tell All: Kinky Sex Secrets of Michael and Lisa Marie's Bedroom."

McManus implied that the quotes weren't exactly accurate.

"Those tabloids write other stuff and put it in there and it makes it look like I said it when I didn't say it," McManus said.