Jackson leaves LV to face charges

By Jeff German

Thursday, Nov. 20, 2003 | 11:16 a.m.

Michael Jackson, following an overnight stay at Green Valley Ranch Station Casino in Henderson, apparently left Las Vegas this morning to surrender to police in Santa Barbara, Calif., on an arrest warrant for multiple counts of child molestation.

Carla Alston, a spokeswoman for Metro Police, said Jackson was scheduled to fly out of the North Las Vegas Airport around 10:30 a.m.

Local police were informed of his planned departure, but played no role in his movements during his stay in Las Vegas, Alston said.

Sources at the airport said Jackson had boarded a plane by midmorning and a plane believed to have been carrying Jackson was seen taking off at 10:45 a.m.

Jackson's presence in Las Vegas contradicted media reports in Southern California that said Jackson, escorted by Santa Barbara detectives, had flown to the area Wednesday afternoon to surrender.

Michael Bush, who said he was Jackson's longtime costume designer, told the Sun this morning that he had delivered clothes to the pop star at his hotel room at Green Valley Ranch Station and that Jackson was "in good spirits."

Bush walked into the Henderson hotel's lobby about 8:50 a.m. bringing in a pair of rhinestone boots covered with a white cloth. He entered an elevator to the hotel rooms and returned downstairs about an hour later without the boots.

He said Jackson had left the resort a half-hour earlier. Several plain-clothed security officers mulling around the hotel lobby left at 9:20 a.m., about the time Bush said Jackson was to have left the hotel.

Hotel employees, including those at the front desk, said they did not know whether Jackson had been staying at the upscale neighborhood resort.

But Bush said he talked to the singer in his room when brought his boots and other clothes.

Bush said that the two didn't discuss the child molestation charges Jackson is facing in Santa Barbara.

"He's innocent," Bush said. "He would never try to do anything to harm anyone."

Jackson attorney Mark Geragos declined to specify when Jackson would return to this oceanside community, where throngs of camera crews and news reporters awaited his possible arrival at county jails and area airports.

"I have made arrangements with the sheriff and the district attorney for Mr. Jackson to come back and confront these charges," Geragos told the Associated Press.

Jackson was expected to surrender to authorities today, and law enforcement officials said charges would be filed.

A Jackson family friend, Steve Manning, told ABC's "Good Morning America" today that Jackson's family came to Las Vegas to support him. "He feels he's been wrongly accused and he's going to fight this tooth and nail," Manning said. "He's at war right now and he's going to use any weapon he has to fight these charges."

His arrest warrant set bail at $3 million, and Jackson was directed to give up his passport, authorities said.

"Get over here and get checked in," District Attorney Thomas W. Sneddon Jr. advised Jackson Wednesday at a news conference broadcast worldwide.

Jackson is charged by the state with lewd or lascivious acts with a child under age 14, punishable by three to eight years in prison, law enforcement officials said. His attorney, Geragos, is also the defense attorney in the Laci Peterson murder case.

"Michael would never harm a child in any way," Jackson spokesman Stuart Backerman said in a statement. "These scurrilous and totally unfounded allegations will be proven false in a courtroom."

Similar allegations surfaced against Jackson a decade ago, but they never led to the filing of criminal charges and in 1994 the probe became inactive. Jackson had maintained his innocence but reportedly paid a multimillion-dollar civil settlement, and the child would not testify in any criminal proceeding.

Sneddon said this case was different because he had a cooperative victim and because of a change in state law "specifically because of the 1993-94 Michael Jackson investigation."

Sneddon told the news conference multiple counts would be filed against Jackson "in a very short period of time," and noted that no civil case has been filed and none is expected, unlike 1993.

CBS reported that the case involves the alleged molestation of a 12-year-old boy at Neverland Ranch, the storybook playground where the singer has been known to hold sleepover parties with children.

On Wednesday, CBS pulled a Jackson music special planned for next Wednesday on his greatest hits and the impact on pop culture of the former child star who got his start with his brothers as a member of the singing-and-dancing Jackson 5.

Since Tuesday, when Jackson's Santa Barbara ranch was searched and a warrant issued, Las Vegas has been inundated with international media trying to get photos of Jackson, who has eluded all watchers.

Jackson had been in town for weeks working on a music video at CMX Productions, a studio off Valley View Boulevard just south of the Palms, to shoot a video for his new CD, "Number Ones," which was released Tuesday.

Throughout Tuesday and Wednesday rumors of Jackson sightings placed him at The Mirage villas, residences for high-rollers on the vast grounds behind the resort, at the Siegfried & Roy compound and at the Venetian.

Jackson has been seen numerous times in Las Vegas over the past two weeks.

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