Pop icon Michael Jackson will be formally charged with child molestation on Thursday, prosecutors have announced.
Santa Barbara District Attorney Tom Sneddon confirmed on Wednesday that he will lay charges against the legendary entertainer at a court in the hamlet of Santa Maria, near Jackson’s Neverland Ranch at about 1pm (9pm GMT) on Thursday.
Sneddon’s statement came one day after he said he was planning to file long-delayed charges on ”multiple” counts of sex abuse on a child under the age of 14 late this week.
Sneddon said the laying of formal charges has been delayed to set up a website to handle public and media interest in the case.
Last month, Jackson (45) was handcuffed and subjected to humiliating police mugshots and fingerprinting when he returned to Santa Barbara on his private jet to face arrest.
He has strongly denied the allegations and dismissed them as a ”big lie”, while his lawyer has suggested his young accuser’s family sees the multi-millionaire star as a ”lottery ticket” and is trying to cash in on his fortune.
The announcement of the filing of criminal charges against one of the world’s top entertainers comes amid a slew of news reports that have cast doubt on the latest allegations against Jackson.
While prosecutors have declined to reveal details of the case against him, Jackson’s accuser is reported to be a 12-year-old cancer patient whom he befriended and entertained at his expansive Neverland ranch.
But conflicting reports about the boy’s troubled family life that have emerged amid the media frenzy following Jackson’s arrest have eroded the public perception of the criminal case against Jackson, media and legal analysts said.
Among the alleged revelations are reports that his family is no stranger to aggressive litigation and that his rowing parents are using the allegations to their advantage as part of an ugly child custody battle.
And last week, a confidential memo by a child services official revealed that authorities had dismissed allegations of abuse as ”unfounded” last February.
The memo referred to a report based on interviews with the boy, his mother, his brother and an older sister who all denied that any abuse had taken place, while the mother said the entertainer was ”like a father to the children and part of her family”.
And the delay in the filing of charges has led to speculation that the prosecution case is in trouble, although Sneddon last week said he had been aware of the child services report before asking for an arrest warrant for Jackson and dismissed its significance.
But the prosecutor has come under fire for the way he has handled the case and publicly apologised last month for laughing and joking at the press conference at which he announced Jackson was being sought.
He also dismissed speculation that he is waging a vendetta against the entertainer, who he tried to prosecute over the 1993 allegations until the case collapsed following a huge out-of-court settlement between Jackson and the alleged victim.
On Tuesday, Sneddon announced that he has engaged the help of a professional public relations firm to deal with the avalanche of media enquiries in the case that has sparked a media firestorm. — Sapa-AFP