His loyal fans were there along with his mother and his brother. Even one of the jurors who last week cleared him of child molestation charges had turned up. In fact the only person missing from the celebration of thanks for Michael Jackson’s acquittal was Michael Jackson.
More than 400 people had gathered by strict invitation only at the Chumash Indian Casino in Santa Ynez, California, on Friday night. But there was no sign of the pop star himself, who has not been seen in public since his 14-week trial ended last Monday.
The unofficial guest of honour was Pauline Coccoz, one of the 12 jurors who unanimously found the star not guilty on all charges of molesting a teenage boy at his Neverland ranch.
The juror said that when she walked into the casino and heard Jackson’s music playing the scale of what had transpired hit her. ”They were playing Beat It and I almost started to cry,” she told the Associated Press, adding that she had brought her family to the event partly as a public display of her confidence in the jury’s verdict.
The crowd erupted when Jackson’s mother, Katherine, arrived to the sounds of the song I’ll Be There. She came on stage at the end of the show to thank her son’s fans around the world for their support.
”We couldn’t have done it without you,” she said as her son Tito stood next to her, his hand on her shoulder.
Others spotted arriving for the show included the defence attorney Robert Sanger and a magician friend of the singer, who calls himself Majestic Magnificent.
Journalists were kept out of the event, and an Associated Press reporter who briefly entered was escorted out by tribal police acting on orders from the Jackson family.
Tito Jackson has been performing periodically at the casino. He had been scheduled to appear on Friday night before it was decided to turn the show into what one of his band members called a celebration of thanks.
Jackson (46) faced up to 18 years in prison had he been found guilty. The charges arose after a British television documentary, Living With Michael Jackson, was broadcast in February 2003.
In the documentary, Jackson was shown holding hands with 13-year-old Gavin Arvizo, who later accused the singer of molestation.
Leonardo DiCaprio was hit with a bottle while attending a Hollywood party, and needed about a dozen stitches to close a wound near his ear.
People magazine reported on its website that the actor was at the party at about 4am on Friday when a woman trespasser struck him with what appeared to be a beer bottle.
The attack is not expected to affect DiCaprio’s work on a Martin Scorsese movie, The Departed, which is shooting in Boston and New York. – Guardian Unlimited Â