Post by MJSUNIFC on Mar 17, 2005 19:17:36 GMT -5
AP/msnbc reports-
SANTA MARIA, Calif. - A former housekeeper at Michael Jackson’s Neverland ranch told jurors Thursday about a parade of boys who often stayed at the estate, among them Jackson’s accuser and his brother, who sometimes ran wild and trashed their living quarters toward the end of their stay.Kiki Fournier was called by the prosecution to outline the relationships between Jackson and constant child houseguests who came through the property while she worked there.
She named nine children, including actor Macaulay Culkin, who came and went during her intermittent tenure from 1991 until she left in September 2003.
Fournier also said she saw Jackson at the dinner table with some children who appeared to be intoxicated, and another time she saw him at an outbuilding with local children, including some who appeared intoxicated. But she said she never saw Jackson give alcohol to a minor.
Under questioning by Deputy District Attorney Gordon Auchincloss, the witness said she observed the behavior of children change when they stayed a while at Neverland, which has an amusement park and zoo.
The more the children got “free rein,” the wilder and destructive they became, she said. She described Jackson as an indulgent host and suggested that children took advantage of him.
“With the absence of an authority figure, these children became wild, and without their parents there this became like Pinocchio’s Pleasure Island,” she said.
Jackson, 46, is accused of molesting a 13-year-old cancer patient at Neverland in early 2003, giving him alcohol and conspiring to hold the boy, his brother, sister and mother captive to get them to make a video rebutting a Feb. 6, 2003, documentary in which Jackson said he let children sleep in his bed but that it was innocent.
A polite boy, at first
Fournier said she remembered Jackson’s accuser as a polite boy at the beginning but then noticed that his room became “a mess.”
On cross-examination by Jackson lawyer Thomas Mesereau Jr., Fournier gave a vivid description of how the boy and his brother wreaked havoc in the guest quarters assigned to them. She said the destruction increased just before the family left Neverland for the last time, which occurred in March 2003.
But even before that, she said, the boy and his brother had “become demanding.”
She said they never seemed to like what was being served for dinner and would demand something different.
“There was no respect,” she said.
She also said she once summoned another maid to see the mess in the room where the two boys stayed.
“They were always sloppy,” she said. “But toward the end things were broken and it was a mess. ... There were things spilled, the refrigerator was a mess. It was like someone had gone in there like a tornado.”
Mesereau asked if it appeared to her that in the two weeks before the family left the boys were sleeping in their own quarters.
Fournier said she assumed they were, given how the place looked.
The prosecution contends the accuser was molested by Jackson in the pop star’s bedroom during the family’s last weeks at Neverland.
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7220949/
SANTA MARIA, Calif. - A former housekeeper at Michael Jackson’s Neverland ranch told jurors Thursday about a parade of boys who often stayed at the estate, among them Jackson’s accuser and his brother, who sometimes ran wild and trashed their living quarters toward the end of their stay.Kiki Fournier was called by the prosecution to outline the relationships between Jackson and constant child houseguests who came through the property while she worked there.
She named nine children, including actor Macaulay Culkin, who came and went during her intermittent tenure from 1991 until she left in September 2003.
Fournier also said she saw Jackson at the dinner table with some children who appeared to be intoxicated, and another time she saw him at an outbuilding with local children, including some who appeared intoxicated. But she said she never saw Jackson give alcohol to a minor.
Under questioning by Deputy District Attorney Gordon Auchincloss, the witness said she observed the behavior of children change when they stayed a while at Neverland, which has an amusement park and zoo.
The more the children got “free rein,” the wilder and destructive they became, she said. She described Jackson as an indulgent host and suggested that children took advantage of him.
“With the absence of an authority figure, these children became wild, and without their parents there this became like Pinocchio’s Pleasure Island,” she said.
Jackson, 46, is accused of molesting a 13-year-old cancer patient at Neverland in early 2003, giving him alcohol and conspiring to hold the boy, his brother, sister and mother captive to get them to make a video rebutting a Feb. 6, 2003, documentary in which Jackson said he let children sleep in his bed but that it was innocent.
A polite boy, at first
Fournier said she remembered Jackson’s accuser as a polite boy at the beginning but then noticed that his room became “a mess.”
On cross-examination by Jackson lawyer Thomas Mesereau Jr., Fournier gave a vivid description of how the boy and his brother wreaked havoc in the guest quarters assigned to them. She said the destruction increased just before the family left Neverland for the last time, which occurred in March 2003.
But even before that, she said, the boy and his brother had “become demanding.”
She said they never seemed to like what was being served for dinner and would demand something different.
“There was no respect,” she said.
She also said she once summoned another maid to see the mess in the room where the two boys stayed.
“They were always sloppy,” she said. “But toward the end things were broken and it was a mess. ... There were things spilled, the refrigerator was a mess. It was like someone had gone in there like a tornado.”
Mesereau asked if it appeared to her that in the two weeks before the family left the boys were sleeping in their own quarters.
Fournier said she assumed they were, given how the place looked.
The prosecution contends the accuser was molested by Jackson in the pop star’s bedroom during the family’s last weeks at Neverland.
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7220949/