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Santa Maria Is Bracing for JacksonThe singer is scheduled for his second arraignment next week, but his lawyers will challenge the grand jury's indictment.By Steve ChawkinsLA Times Staff WriterApril 23, 2004With the arraignment of Michael Jackson set for April 30, officials in Santa Maria are beefing up security and planning to erect barricades around the courthouse to keep order among anticipated throngs of media and fans.Meanwhile, two of the superstar's former employees were waiting Thursday to hear whether they too were named in the sealed indictment, which was handed down by the Santa Barbara County Grand Jury.The panel returned its indictment Wednesday after 13 days of testimony. Jackson has been accused of molesting a 12-year-old boy at his palatial Neverland Ranch in the Santa Ynez Valley, but the details of the indictment will not be released until he is arraigned.Because criminal charges were filed months before county Dist. Atty. Tom Sneddon decided to convene the grand jury, Jackson is in the unusual position of being forced to enter a plea twice in what is essentially the same case. His lawyers have said he will plead not guilty.At his first arraignment Jan. 16, hundreds of Jackson's fans cheered him as he danced on a van's roof with the world's media avidly chronicling every move. His followers had organized rented buses into a "convoy of love" from Los Angeles and, as he danced, crowds surged onto the street.On Thursday, Santa Maria police warned against a repeat performance."When he made the unwise decision of jumping on top of the van, that incited the crowd," said Lt. Chris Vaughn, a department spokesman. "We weren't happy at all about that event and hope Mr. Jackson doesn't try anything like it again."Vaughn said fans will be kept across the street from the courthouse instead of being allowed to mill around on the grounds. Jackson and his attorneys will be urged to arrive with fewer vehicles in their caravan and take what Vaughn described as "a more directed route" into the courthouse. At least 90 Santa Maria police officers and Santa Barbara County sheriff's deputies will be on hand, he said.It was partly to avoid another spectacle that Sneddon opted for the secrecy of a grand jury in an obscure location — a sheriff's training center north of Santa Barbara — over a public preliminary hearing that would have required Jackson's presence, sources have said.On top of that, grand juries, where defense attorneys are barred from appearing, usually do the bidding of prosecutors. A classic 1964 study of Illinois grand juries showed them returning indictments in 90% of their cases, and legal experts said the same was probably true decades later in California."They tend to be rubber stamps for prosecutors," said Mike Vitiello, a professor at Sacramento's McGeorge School of Law, who has studied grand juries exhaustively. "The old cliche is that a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich and that's probably true. But it would have to be a really good ham sandwich."The Jackson grand jury was conducted amid such secrecy that witnesses were sometimes rushed into the hearing room under blankets. On Thursday, an attorney for two Jackson associates who had been accused of threatening the alleged victim's family said even he couldn't find out from Santa Barbara County authorities whether his clients had been indicted."They need to tell me so we can make travel arrangements," said Joseph Tacopina, a New York attorney representing Vincent Amen and Frank Tyson.The men have not been charged in the case, but they were asked to appear before the grand jury because of accusations by the mother of the alleged victim.Prosecutors "are just trying to put pressure on these kids" for incriminating testimony against Jackson, said Tacopina, who added his clients had done nothing wrong.While an indictment means Jackson must plead again at an arraignment, Vitiello and other experts said they saw nothing in the law that would necessarily require him to be arrested again. Jackson's attorneys already have laid the groundwork for a legal challenge of the indictment. In an April 2 hearing, defense attorney Benjamin Brafman contended that prosecutors had failed to adequately present the grand jury with evidence favorable to his client, as the law requires.After the arraignment, Jackson's lawyers could move to have the indictment thrown out for that reason, said Gerald F. Uelmen, a former federal prosecutor who teaches at the Santa Clara University School of Law.Uelmen, one of the attorneys on the O.J. Simpson "dream team," said he had reservations about the Jackson grand jury because of the criminal charges that already had been filed in the case."The prosecution is not supposed to use the grand jury as a discovery tool to prepare a case that already has been charged," he said.On the other hand, he pointed out, Jackson's lawyers could have demanded a public preliminary hearing but didn't want one."They have good tactical reasons to not have their case exposed to the kind of intense publicity it would have gotten," he said. "Having victims come in and testify at a preliminary hearing before they're ready could skew public opinion in a negative way." |
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发表于 2004-4-23 00:00:00
显身卡
有Michael Jackson客串“特工MJ”一角的电影《漂流女孩》（Miss Cast Away）的海报（如上）和预告片已经公布。你可以在《漂流女孩》的官方网站
[B]04/04/23 女歌迷自述感人故事[/B]4月23日，VH1欧洲台播放了关于MJ歌迷俱乐部和一些歌迷的故事。观众们充分感受到了歌迷们对MJ的爱。其中最另人感动的故事是——一个女歌迷自述：“我儿子死的时候，我相信上帝已离我远去。但是成为一个M的歌迷让我重拾对上帝的信仰。“成为一个MJ的歌迷让我走上了一个以前从未接触过的方向。在我52岁的时候我接触了网页和图形设计。让我开始做这事情的是一个关于MJ的网站。我每天至少花6小时在MJ的绘画及网站上。MJ让我开始了一种全新的生活，那是我以前从未有过的。”“我买了一栋更大的房子放MJ的海报。他们太美了，我真想每天都看着，可惜我没有那么多的墙去挂他们。”“我做过的最疯狂的事情是去欧洲看他的演唱会。在那里我发觉MJ的歌迷像是有个大家庭。在我还未成为歌迷前，我从不关心其他人，我不认识他们，他们的对我而言只是陌生人。而现在我能感觉他们的快乐和痛苦。”“我和很多其他歌迷不一样，他们把MJ当做神。但我认为他只是个普通的人。我对他如此虔诚是以为给了我新生。我能感觉到MJ是被送往人间，他的使命就是帮助人类。如果我未曾失去我儿子我永远不会成为MJ的歌迷，如果不是他我将和有些人一样，被生活抛弃，或被送往精神病院。为什么MJ会进入我的生活，是因为他成了我精神的一部分,我很高兴他完全改变了我的生活。”发布：Chris
狗仔卡
楼主
发表于 2004-4-23 00:00:00
[这个贴子最后由Chris在 2004/04/23 07:01pm 第 1 次编辑]04/04/23 MJ目前住在佛罗里 达中部某豪宅据说MJ目前住在一个位于佛罗里达州伊斯列沃斯富人区的，价值1000多万的豪宅中，这栋临湖的房产属于被称之为“奥兰多王牌”的David Siegal（美国知名房地产业、赌博业大亨）所有。 David Siega的妻子解释说，MJ和他的随行人员定下了她这栋有12个卧室和19个浴室的房产。“我们接到了一个地产代理商的电话询问我们是否有兴趣将房子借出数星期。我告诉我丈夫，我们为何不就此赚点外快呢？”她没有透露MJ为此支付多少钱。事实上，当她一周半前把房子借出时，她并不知道那个人是MJ。“他们对这个很保密。我自己都是从小道消息那里得知的。”事实上MJ的隐私得到了保护。这栋房子位于它所处的小岛上而且远离其他别的人家尤其是远离好莱钨的那群狗仔队们。[来源：www.wftv.com 发布：Chris]