Thursday, December 18, 2003 By Roger Friedman Jackson Charges Will Be Difficult to Prove Michael Jackson may be weird, he may act inappropriately with children, he may even be completely nuts. But the nine charges leveled against him this afternoon by the Santa Barbara District Attorney Tom Sneddon do not look strong enough to convict him of child molestation. Poor judgment is more like it. At worst, Sneddon may have Jackson on the two charges of 赠dministering an intoxicating agent.?I told you first, back on Nov. 19, that Jackson would be accused of giving the 12-year-old boy wine and sleeping pills. That would apply to the two last charges in the felony complaint against him. But the boy in question, his brother and mother appeared with Jackson in an ABC special that aired on Feb. 6, 2003. Subsequently, an investigation by the Los Angeles County Child Protective Services took place between Feb. 14 and 28 that concluded no abuse had taken place. Sneddon is now asking us to believe that beginning on the day after the special aired, and while the investigation was taking place, Jackson decided to commit seven lewd acts upon the boy. It旧 possible, but it seems implausible. Mark Geragos, Jackson旧 attorney, will offer dozens of witnesses who passed through Neverland between the dates on Sneddon旧 complaint -- Feb. 7 through March 10 -- and saw nothing of consequence. He will also have testimony from Neverland staffers who will claim that Jackson was never alone with the boy, and certainly not enough to commit lewd acts on seven separate occasions. I will tell you stories in the weeks to come of children who Jackson befriended, as well as their families. (I挙e no doubt others will, too.) They may seem very strange. But do they make him a pedophile? Sneddon has promised in the past that more children would start coming f orward to tell their stories. So far, none have done that. Only this one boy, from a family that has spent a good deal of time wresting large cash settlements and making accusations based on race and sex against companies. Sneddon is going to have a hard time proving that none of that matters, or that Michael Jackson is guilty of more than making fun of the district attorney in a song. --

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