SANTA MARIA, California (CNN) — A former security guard at Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch testified Thursday that he saw the pop star performing oral sex on a young boy while the two were standing nude outside a shower.
The former guard, Ralph Chacon, testified that Jackson and the boy — who was involved in a civil suit against Jackson in 1993 — were engaged in «passionate» kissing and were caressing before the sex act.
The 46-year-old singer is accused of molesting another boy — now 15 years old — at Neverland, giving him alcohol and conspiring to hold the boy’s family captive in 2003.
Jackson has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
«[Jackson’s] hands were all over his body,» Chacon said of the incident outside the shower in late 1992 or 1993.
The family of the boy, who was 9 or 10 at the time of the incident, filed a civil lawsuit against the entertainer 12 years ago. Without admitting guilt, Jackson agreed to a multimillion-dollar settlement to end that case.
Chacon’s testimony marks the first time in this trial that jurors have heard allegations of sexual contact that went beyond fondling or masturbation.
There were no court proceedings on Wednesday because the judge was attending an out-of-town conference.
Jackson attended the funeral of prominent lawyer Johnnie Cochran, who died March 29 of a brain tumor.
Tuesday, Michael Jackson’s former personal maid testified she saw the pop star showering and laughing with a young boy at Neverland, with their underwear lying outside the shower door.
However, the woman said that in the years she worked for Jackson, she never saw him touch a child sexually, although his behavior did make her uncomfortable and «concerned» for her own preteen son, who often came to work with her at Jackson’s suggestion.
Her son testified Monday that he had been fondled by Jackson on three occasions but did not tell his mother until years afterward. (Monday’s testimony)
Both the mother and son in 1996 reached an out-of-court financial settlement with Jackson in which the entertainer denied wrongdoing.
Taking the stand at Jackson’s child molestation trial, the former maid also said child movie star Macaulay Culkin stayed alone with Jackson in his bedroom when he visited for extended periods, though she did not say she saw any improper contact between the two.
The woman said the boy she saw showering with Jackson was about 8 years old when he started staying at Neverland for weeks at a time over about a year, starting in 1989. She said he would sleep overnight in Jackson’s bedroom suite, and, when she went to change the linen, she would find only one of the two beds in the suite had been used.
The woman, who worked for Jackson from 1986 until 1991 and had a key to his bedroom, testified as part of prosecutors’ efforts to prove the pop star had a pattern of grooming young boys for sexual abuse.
Maid: Jackson encouraged her to bring son
In her testimony, the former maid described hearing laughter coming from the bathroom in Jackson’s suite. When she walked inside, she could see figures through the shower door, although the door itself was too cloudy to see through.
She said she identified the voices as Jackson and the boy and she could identify that the underwear she saw on the floor belonged to them.
But fearing that Jackson would become angry if he knew she had come into the bathroom, she said she left and never told him she had been there.
She said Jackson encouraged her to bring her own then-preteen son with her when she came to work. She testified that she did, even though she «was concerned for my son» because she «saw little things before with other kids.»
Her son told jurors Monday that following each of the three alleged fondling incidents, Jackson gave him a $100 bill and told him not to tell his mother about the money.
His mother testified Tuesday that she found two $100 bills in her son’s pocket one day after they left a Los Angeles apartment where Jackson lived before buying Neverland. She said her son told her that the money was a «secret» and that «Michael told me it was for me and not to tell you.»
She also said she once found her son sitting on Jackson’s lap and pulled him off. On another occasion, she said she found the two of them lying together in a sleeping bag and ordered her son to come out. He refused, she said.
When she would take the boy to work with her, she would tell him to stay downstairs because she knew Jackson was upstairs.
«I told my son not to go with him,» she said.
