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小靴子

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A member of the British aristocracy who has been subpoenaed to testify for the prosecution in the Michael Jackson child molestation case has received threats telling him to stay away from the trial. Lord Alex Montagu spoke exclusively with NBC News, in violation of Judge Rodney Melville's gag order, because he says he has received telephone threats. According to Montagu, the caller told him "to leave the country and don't come back until after the hearing. Montagu has been subpoenaed to testify because of his and his son Alexander's experiences with Michael Jackson at the singer's Neverland Ranch in the late ?0s. Montagu says Jackson met his son at a memorial service for Princess Diana, and then started calling the boy, frequently. He said the singer and his son became fast friends. Montagu knows of nothing improper that Jackson did with his son during two visits to Neverland, but because of the gag order he wouldn't give details about those visits. (Source: MSNBC)

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LATIFAH IS STILL SUPPORTING JACKSON QUEEN LATIFAH QUEEN LATIFAH is refusing to give up supporting MICHAEL JACKSON as he fights child molestation charges in Santa Maria, California, because he inspired her to be what she is today. The CHICAGO star refuses to comment on whether she thinks her hero is innocent or guilty of charges, but she can't stop thinking that Jackson's a good man. She says, "I love Michael Jackson and that's the only thought I had. Watching his trial has made me go, `That's Michael Jackson!' "I can think back to when I was little and we just loved the JACKSON 5's ABC. We would just dance in the living room, my brother and I and my mom. "He's like the greatest entertainer of all time. I'm looking at his influence in USHER and JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE - these guys are doing Michael Jackson moves and they just kind of hooked him up for now. "As a performer, he influenced most people and showed many people how to do things differently. Watching his videos like THRILLER and BEAT IT... The first time I saw that walkway light up in BILLY JEAN, I was like, `Oh my God,' and then seeing him performing it on stage. There's nothing that he hasn't done that hasn't amazed me."

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Michael Jackson will win case says Kiwi employee A New Zealand man who worked with Michael Jackson is standing by the embattled pop star as he stands trial for child molestation. Rob Henry was Jackson's assistant on the 1987 Bad World Tour, responsible for Jackson, his security, management, solicitors and camera crew. He had daily contact with the man he described as "down to earth and nice", and, sick of the media twisting the King of Pop's image, he has spoken out. "I can't speak highly enough of the man. I would leave my 3 1/2-year-old with him tomorrow," he told the Herald on Sunday from his home in Whangarei. It is a situation Mr Henry described as "ludicrous". He saw Jackson with children, and saw nothing untoward in his behaviour. He claims to have first-hand knowledge of how the press painted a picture of "wacko" Jackson. He rubbished stories about Jackson's penchant for bathing in Evian water - a tale made up by the press, he says, after seeing bottles of Evian for a crew of 290 people delivered to the hotel. Disguises Jackson wore to avoid being recognised were made out to be a fascination with dress-ups, said Mr Henry. Jackson's one fault, said Mr Henry, was that he was too naive. Mr Henry believes Jackson will walk free, and will fight back with "an album bigger than Thriller". He had contacted Jackson's assistant, and he said the message to fans in New Zealand was to keep supporting him through his music. "He's found a lot of strength, and I think he will stand up to them this time. I think he's learned a very big lesson."

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FW: Do you like politics? Cher: Look at Schwarzenegger as governor. That is amusing but it is also sad. FW: You criticize Arnold Schwarzenegger, but you defend Michael Jackson? Cher: I have known him since he was a kid. You know where I empathize the most is how the press will not stop running the same thing over and over again. It's no longer news, he hasn't done anything. That is what bothers me. I feel, though, that this is a good time for him to go to court, prove his innocence once and for all, or not.

Jackson: I'm the Victim of a Conspiracy 1 hour, 48 minutes ago Top Stories - AP By JOHN ROGERS, Associated Press Writer LOS ANGELES - Declaring himself "completely innocent" of child molestation charges, Michael Jackson (news) said Sunday that he is the victim of a conspiracy and asked fans around the world to pray for him. In an interview with the Rev. Jesse Jackson (news - web sites), the entertainer would not elaborate on his conspiracy belief, citing the court-imposed gag order that prevents him from discussing his trial in detail. However, he said he believes he is just the latest of several "black luminaries" to be unjustly accused, citing former South African President Nelson Mandela and former heavyweight boxing champions Muhammad Ali and Jack Johnson (news) as others. "I just want to say to fans in every corner of the Earth, every nationality, every race, every language, I love you from the bottom of my heart," Jackson said toward the end of the hourlong interview broadcast live on the Internet. "I would love your prayers and your goodwill, and please be patient and be with me and believe in me because I am completely, completely innocent. But please know a lot of conspiracy is going on as we speak," he said. Jackson also said he is in "intense pain" since falling in the shower earlier this month, although he said at another point that his health was perfect. He arrived late to court on March 10, wearing pajama bottoms, a T-shirt and walking stiffly, and his representatives said at the time he had been treated at a hospital for a serious back injury. "I was coming out of the shower and I fell and all my body weight — I'm pretty fragile — all my body weight fell against my rib cage," Jackson said. "And I bruised my lung very badly." He said the injury has caused him to cough up blood and was so painful that it brought him to tears in court one day when he was seen wiping his eyes with a tissue. He said he remains under a doctor's care. When Jesse Jackson noted how thin he is, the pop star replied that he has never been a big eater, something he said has always concerned his mother and others, including actress Elizabeth Taylor, a friend. "Elizabeth Taylor used to feed me, to hand-feed me, at times," he said. "Please, I don't want anybody to think I'm starving, I'm not." he quickly added. "My health is perfect, actually." The entertainer also denied recent rumors that he is teetering on the verge of bankruptcy. "That's not true at all. It's just one of their many schemes to embarrass me. It's to drag me through the mud," he said. However, he indicated some sort of battle is under way over the music catalog he owns that contains the rights to songs by the Beatles, Little Richard and others. "There's a big fight going on, right now as we speak, about that," he said. "I can't comment on it, but there's a lot of conspiracy out there." He spent the first 40 minutes of the interview reminiscing warmly about his career, his family and such childhood musical heroes as James Brown, Jackie Wilson, Sammy Davis (news) Jr. and the Beatles, saying he grew up in a household filled with music. Jesse Jackson told The Associated Press earlier this month that he and Michael Jackson frequently pray together, and he told his audience Sunday that he speaks by phone with the entertainer nearly every day. Michael Jackson, a Jehovah's Witness, said prayer is helping him get through his trial, which resumes Monday. "I gain strength from God. I believe in Jehovah God very much," he said. Asked the lowest point in his life, he responded: "Probably the low point, the lowest point emotionally, is probably what I'm going through." He said the high point was when he recorded his heralded "Thriller" album of 1982. He set out to make it a disco version of Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker Suite," and believes he succeeded, Jackson said, noting it won eight Grammys (news - web sites) and was the biggest-selling record of all time. "I would say that was the pinnacle," he said.

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Did Jackson's Maid Meet Cops With a Reporter? Monday, March 28, 2005 By Roger Friedman http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,151665,00.html Did Jackson's Maid Meet Cops With an Enquirer Reporter? The judge could rule today that Michael Jackson's rumored but never-proven "prior acts" with children can be presented in court as evidence. But that may not help the prosecution. Jackson's former maid, who said she witnessed Jackson engaged in inappropriate activity with her son and other children, has a fuzzy and questionable history to her allegations. On Friday, I told you that dozens of hours of fascinating tape-recorded phone calls made by a National Enquirer reporter have surfaced. The reporter, Jim Mitteager, who is now deceased, left them to a private investigator named Paul Barresi. Now Barresi, who combed through them and made transcripts, is uncovering material from a decade ago that resonates today. Barresi discovered that the Neverland maid Blanca Francia, who claimed Jackson molested her son, used a National Enquirer reporter as her translator when she was interviewed by the police in 1994. She sold her story to the tabloid as well as to the now defunct TV show "Hard Copy," and received $2 million from Jackson and $20,000 from the show. Today in court, Judge Rodney Melville will hear both sides in the Jackson case argue the pros and cons of introducing evidence of Jackson's so-called "prior acts." This evidence would be in the form of witnesses who say they have information about Jackson's inappropriate relationships with children. The accuser who received $20 million from Jackson in a 1993 settlement is not likely to appear. The former accuser has never outed himself publicly and there would be no benefit for him to appear. But the prosecution is counting on Francia and her son. After the story of the first boy broke in 1993, Francia came forward with the accusation that she had seen Jackson in a sleeping bag with her son and showering with other boys in 1990. Her saga was featured in Mary A. Fischer's watershed 1994 article in GQ, "Was Michael Jackson Framed?" Before she settled, the maid was called to testify in a civil suit brought by the family of the 1993 accuser. She admitted to embellishing her story to "Hard Copy" and to being remunerated for it as well. On the tapes, Barresi discovered that Enquirer reporter Lydia Encinas was with the maid when police officers came to see her. In a January 1994 conversation, Enquirer editor David Perel asked Mitteager if anything new was breaking on Encinas' involvement in the interrogation. "No. Just hope the cops don't freak out when they see the story. They sort of know what's coming," Perel replied. What was coming was an Enquirer story about Francia that was penned by Encinas. It's unclear whether the cops knew that Encinas was a tabloid reporter or that she had a financial interest in the maid's veracity. The Enquirer was paying big bucks for any information about Jackson at the time. At one point on the tapes, an editor at the Globe is heard saying to Mitteager: "Jim, when you go in on these deals, talk big money and don't back off. I mean, talk 50 grand. We need [Jackson's former manager] Frank DiLeo telling all, at $100,000, if we can get him. We need all of Jackson's celebrity pals. Anything they said. Every kid that has ever been with Jackson. We want to know who he is ... where he's coming from ... any pictures available. We want to put big offers to any member of the family. We need to go with the big money. The big offers. It's the biggest story since [Elvis] Presley's death." On March 23, 1994, Perel told Mitteager: "The reason why Lydia Encinas is involved is because she speaks Spanish and she's got a pretty good relationship going with Blanca ... The cops took Lydia yesterday to Blanca's house. [Blanca has] only got a sixth-grade education, so there is a problem there. Blanca is very distrustful ... The cops are looking for copies of agreements between Jackson and parents." (See Friday's column for our story about a faked agreement touted by the tabloids.) Russ Birchim, one of the police officers who interviewed the maid, denied that Encinas was present when at the questioning. "Lydia Encinas was not the translator. But I did meet with her in Los Angeles," he said. Birchim, who is on the prosecution's witness list, did not explain why he had met with a National Enquirer reporter in the first place. All efforts to contact Encinas have failed. Barresi is sitting on a goldmine of information not only about Jackson, but other celebrities as well. But he remains a staunch supporter of Mitteager. He's aware of the crucial role that Mitteager's tapes could play in rehashing scandals of a decade ago. In fact, Mitteager's tapes provide an incredible history that shows how the tabloids worked to gin up interest in sensational stories 10 years ago when "Hard Copy" and the original "A Current Affair" were in vogue. By opening the door to this story, District Attorney Tom Sneddon may bite off more than he can chew. The maid, her payment from "Hard Copy" and the resulting lawsuits are less about Jackson than about the greed and ambition that surrounds him. In unraveling the mysteries of Jackson's "prior acts," Sneddon could leave room for defense attorney Thomas Mesereau to openly investigate the connections between all these people. And that would make a much more interesting story than almost anything we've heard so far.

Jackson witness says he’s been threatened Montagu claims caller has told him to stay away from trialEXCLUSIVE By Mike Taibbi NBC News Updated: 12:02 p.m. ET March 25, 2005 LOS ANGELES - A member of the British aristocracy who has been subpoenaed to testify for the prosecution in the Michael Jackson child molestation case told NBC News' Mike Taibbi that he has received threats telling him to stay away from the trial. Lord Alex Montagu, who is listed in Burkes Peerage as Viscount Mandeville Baron Montagu Alexander Charles David Drogo Montagu and as the Duke of Manchester on his passport, spoke exclusively with NBC News, in violation of Judge Rodney Melville's gag order, because he says he has received telephone threats. According to Montagu, the caller told him “to leave the country and don't come back until after the hearing. “I've had the front of my house vandalized, I've had my car tires slashed,” Montagu said. He doesn't know who's responsible for the threats and vandalism. Montagu has been subpoenaed to testify because of his and his son Alexander's experiences with Michael Jackson at the singer's Neverland Ranch in the late ’90s. Melville is expected to rule on Monday whether testimony about prior accusations of molestation against the singer can be used in evidence in this trial. If Melville does allow such testimony, Montagu could be a very important witness for District Attorney Thomas Sneddon. According to NBC News, his testimony would complement other available stories about Jackson referring to wine as “Jesus juice” and about the singer and his friendships with young boys. Montagu says Jackson met his son at a memorial service for Princess Diana, and then started calling the boy, frequently. He said the singer and his son became fast friends. “[My son] was sworn to secrecy to Michael,” Montagu said. “I don't really to any total degree know what happened. I asked my son, he didn't tell me. And my son's very fond of Michael but he's got his secrets.” Montagu knows of nothing improper that Jackson did with his son during two visits to Neverland, but because of the gag order he wouldn't give details about those visits. Montagu said he decided to speak with NBC News because of his family's fear, and the ordeal of just waiting. “If I have to testify, [I ask] that it be done as soon as possible, because I just want to get this over and done with and get on with my life,” Montagu said. And what does the Duke of Manchester think now of the King of Pop? “If Mr. Jackson's guilty of something he should be prosecuted,” Montagu said. “If he's not guilty of something then he should be let go with an apology.” © 2005 MSNBC Interactive

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ISOBEL去收邮件 另外，谁快来接这一楼的任务！ Should Jackson's Past Be Fair Game? By David P. Leonard David P. Leonard is a professor of law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. March 29, 2005 The judge in the Michael Jackson case has ruled that the jury will be permitted to hear evidence concerning alleged — not proven — past acts of child molestation by Jackson. Is the ruling fair and appropriate? Santa Barbara County Superior Court Judge Rodney S. Melville clearly has the authority to allow the jury to hear these allegations. Under a state law adopted in the late 1990s, a trial court must allow the evidence unless the judge finds that it would be overwhelmingly unfair to do so. The justification for the law is twofold. First, there is research suggesting that certain types of sexual offenders are highly likely to repeat such crimes. (The law is also applicable to sex crimes other than child molestation.) In other words, there is an assumption that the evidence will be of great value to the jury. Second, proving cases of sexual assault and child molestation is difficult because the accused and the victim are often the only witnesses, and the accused can appear more credible than the victim. The rule seeks to even the balance and make conviction more likely by providing additional, and extremely persuasive, evidence of guilt. There are, however, serious flaws in the assumptions underlying the legislation. Even if perpetrators of certain types of sexual crimes are more likely to commit similar crimes again, the recidivism rate is nowhere near as high as it is for other criminals, including thieves. Yet the law does not allow the prosecution in theft cases to offer evidence that a person has committed other thefts so as to permit the jury to apply the "once a thief, always a thief" reasoning. And why not? Because it is a fundamental position of U.S. law that a person is tried not for who he or she is, but for how he or she acted on a particular occasion — the occasion that gave rise to the charges. Allowing the jury to hear evidence of past similar crimes — charged and proven or not — will certainly lead to more wrongful convictions because the jury will overvalue the evidence as an indicator of guilt or reason that it hardly matters whether the person actually committed the current crime because getting him or her off the streets will prevent future crime. True, in many cases the right person will be put away. But what of those cases in which past behavior is just that, in the past, and the person charged is innocent? What if the jury assumes too much and convicts an innocent person? This is not fantasy, nor is it necessarily even rare. Wrongful convictions are already a problem in our system, as indicated by the number of death row inmates who have been released as a result of DNA evidence demonstrating that they could not have committed the crimes. Here's one way that the rule could add to our mistakes. Allowing the prosecution to present evidence of alleged similar crimes not only affects the trials of people accused, it affects who will be accused. Society demands that police solve crimes. This makes it essential for police to "clear" cases as quickly as possible. Given that past history will be admissible, it will be easy for police to succumb to the temptation to "round up the usual suspects" when a certain type of crime is committed. Police databases contain the names of those who allegedly committed such crimes before — perhaps even if they were merely arrested and not charged. In the end, the decision whether to allow evidence of an accused's similar crimes is largely one of values. Fear of crime victimization is rampant in our society. Despite statistics showing that the real rate of crime is actually declining over time, we are more afraid than ever. Clearly, some people are willing to live with wrongful criminal charges and wrongful convictions, especially if it also means more guilty people are convicted. But others consider the cost of wrongful convictions too high. So what about Monday's ruling in the Michael Jackson case? Certainly the evidence will be extremely damaging to his defense, and if he is guilty, the rule will have served the cause of justice. But if he is not guilty, and if the evidence leads the jury to convict him, we should ask whether we are really better off overall. None of us like to think of ourselves as one of the "usual suspects," but the truth is that the line between never being accused of a crime and being wrongly accused is not that great, and rules permitting evidence of prior crimes narrow the line even further. That just might be too high a price to pay.