Santa Maria, California, May 01: Michael Jackson pleaded not guilty today to a grand jury indictment charging him with child molestation and a conspiracy count involving allegations of child abduction, false imprisonment and extortion. The indictment also included four counts of lewd acts involving a minor child, one count involving an attempted lewd act upon a child and four counts of administering an intoxicating agent to a child.
The alleged child abduction, false imprisonment and extortion are not individual charges, but are alleged as the circumstances leading to the conspiracy count. After being given copies of the indictment, Jackson and his attorneys went into a room next to the courtroom to read it.
Superior court judge Rodney Melville then agreed to a prosecution request that portions of the indictment regarding the conspiracy count be sealed. He also agreed with a defense request that parts of three lines be removed. The indictment, issued in secret earlier this month, replaces charges filed by prosecutors that alleged seven counts of lewd or lascivious conduct involving a child under 14 and two counts of administering an intoxicant to a child under 14.
Copies of the indictment, with the requested deletions, were not immediately released to the public, and it was not known whether the new charges involved the same child mentioned in the original charges, or what the conspiracy and extortion counts referred to.
Bureau Report