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Witness says game led to molestation by Jackson

By wire services
Published April 5, 2005

SANTA MARIA, Calif. - In a halting, emotion-choked voice, the son of Michael Jackson's former housekeeper testified Monday that the pop star molested him during a tickling game in 1990.

The 24-year-old man was called to the stand as prosecutors in the current case against Jackson began trying to show the jury that the singer has a pattern of molesting boys.

The witness said that over a span of several years, Jackson twice touched his groin over his clothes during tickling games at Jackson's Los Angeles-area condominium, which he and his mother referred to as "the hideaway," and later reached under his clothes at Jackson's Neverland ranch.

Jackson gave him $100 after each of the first two incidents but nothing after the third one, he said.

"We were tickling. He was tickling and I was laughing and the - it was, he was - he was tickling me in the ... " the witness said before asking the judge for a break.

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon was too slow to inform local officials about the anthrax scare in Defense Department mail facilities last month, and gave antibiotics to workers without coordinating with public health officials, an assessment of the false alarm concludes.

Moreover, the Homeland Security Department "needs to be involved earlier in such incidents," according to a summary of the report obtained Monday by The Associated Press.

"Perhaps the greatest information concerns of the state and local governments involved the adequacy of updates from DoD on the testing taking place, and DoD's role in making prophylaxis (antibiotics) decisions alone," the summary said. The report prepared under the direction of Maryland, Virginia and District of Columbia officials is expected to be released today.

The assessment examined local and state response to the two-day, mid-March scare that prompted nearly 900 Washington-area workers to take precautionary antibiotics and invoked memories of the 2001 anthrax-by-mail attacks that killed five.

HILLSIDE, N.J. - The biggest antiterrorism drill ever held in the United States got under way Monday with a mock biological attack in New Jersey and a simulated chemical weapons explosion in Connecticut.

Named TOPOFF 3, the $16-million, weeklong exercise is meant to find weak spots in the nation's emergency planning.

"I want to make it clear that we are going to push our plans and our systems to the very limit," U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said. "So we expect failure because we're actually going to be seeking to push to failure, and that is, in our judgment, the best way to get a "lessons learned' from what we do here."

Although no real weapons or bio-agents are used, state and local officials responded as if it were the real thing, sending ambulances to hospitals and flooding the area with investigators and emergency workers in haz-mat suits.

TOMBSTONE, Ariz. - Volunteers who have converged on the Mexican border to watch for illegal immigrants are disrupting U.S. Border Patrol operations by unwittingly tripping sensors that alert agents to possible intruders, agency officials complained Monday.

Scores of participants in the Minuteman Project began assembling late last week and clusters of volunteers began regular patrols Monday. Over the past few days, they have set off sensors, forcing agents to respond to false alarms, said supervisory Border Patrol Agent Jose Maheda.

The volunteers had a limited presence across 23 miles of the San Pedro Valley during the weekend. They spent Monday expanding their line southeast of Naco to watch the border and report any illegal activity to federal agents.

[Last modified April 5, 2005, 01:32:04]