CA invaded by ‘show’

The quiet Californian town of Santa Maria looked as if it was preparing for a Michael Jackson concert, rather than a 30-minute appearance i...

The quiet Californian town of Santa Maria looked as if it was preparing for a Michael Jackson concert, rather than a 30-minute appearance in a courtroom with a 120 seat capacity. On the eve of Jackson’s arraignment, helicopters hovered over the court complex, while police on the ground tried to corral hordes of news media crews that had already staked out their turf around the courthouse.

In the court complex’s normally vacant car park, television crews from around the world, including Britain, Germany and Japan, snapped up spaces at $250 a day for their satellite transmission vans. And with hotel rooms almost impossible to come by, newspaper reports said local residents near the courthouse were hawking their digs to the press for $1,000 a week.

“King of Pop” Michael Jackson pleaded innocent on Friday to child molestation charges during a five-minute hearing in which he was scolded by a judge for arriving 20 minutes late at the Santa Maria, California, court. Superior Court Judge Rodney Melville told Jackson not to be late again, and set a hearing for February 13. Hundreds of fans were present outside the courthouse to show him support.

Michael Jackson has been “isolated” by the radical Nation of Islam group, the singer’s former spokesman said on Friday as Jackson pleaded on child sex charges. “I wouldn’t say he’s kept semi-captive but he has certainly been isolated by the Nation of Islam,” said Stuart Backerman, who resigned December 31 as Jackson’s spokesman because of what he called “strategic differences”.