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Another Twist
New Document May Back Jackson's Defense
Dec. 9 — Authorities in Los Angeles cleared Michael Jackson months ago of sexual allegations involving the same boy making claims against the singer in a Santa Barbara criminal case, according to a confidential document
The internal government memo, obtained by The Smoking Gun Web site (
www.thesmokinggun.com), says Los Angeles police and child welfare officials concluded that sexual allegations against Jackson were "unfounded" months before the pop star was arrested on molestation charges in Santa Barbara on Nov. 20.
The memo, which followed a confidential investigation by Los Angeles police and child welfare officials, said the minor "denied any form of sexual abuse" and said that he never "slept in the same bed as the entertainer."
The document said the boy had denied the allegations when questioned by a social worker assigned to the Sensitive Case Unit of L.A.'s Department of Children and Family Services back in February of this year.
Bill Bastone, editor of The Smoking Gun says he called Santa Barbara investigators and briefed them on the existence of the document before releasing it on his Web site.
"They were very surprised and basically said California law does not allow them to comment on any degree of the investigation," Bastone told ABCNEWS' Good Morning America. "They essentially confirmed that the document is real as we already knew but beyond that they couldn't talk about it, which is what we expected."
Bastone did not reveal how the document was obtained by The Smoking Gun.
Jackson, 45, was booked last month in Santa Barbara County on multiple counts of child molestation after the 14-year-old boy alleged the self-proclaimed King of Pop sexually abused him during visits to Jackson's Neverland Ranch. The boy was 12 at the time of the alleged abuse. Jackson has labeled the allegations "a big lie."
The document, which does not use Jackson's name, referring to him only as "the entertainer," resulted from an investigation that was launched in response to a complaint filed by an official from the Los Angeles Unified School District
The official filed the complaint after the minor appeared in a documentary with Jackson, according to the document.
In the memo, officials said officers from the L.A. police department and child welfare investigators interviewed the alleged victim, his then 12-year-old brother, his 16-year-old sister and his mother. According to the memo, each one said the child had a strong friendship with "the entertainer," but insisted there was nothing sexual about it.
The boy's mother was quoted as saying that "her children are never left alone with the entertainer." And, according to the memo, she said that while "her son has slept in the same room as the entertainer … they did not share a bed. The entertainer would sleep on the floor."
The statements included in the memo are consistent with what Jackson claimed on the British documentary that aired last February on ABC.
Jackson told interviewer Martin Bashir that he had shared his bed with children, but that it was not at all sexual.
"The most loving thing to do is to share your bed with someone," Jackson said in one of a series of interviews with Bashir.
Jackson also told Bashir that he would sleep on the floor if a young houseguest wanted to sleep in his bed.
"I said, 'No, you sleep on the bed, I'll sleep on the floor,'" Jackson said in the documentary.
The memo, obtained by The Smoking Gun, indicated that the school official suspected the boy was being neglected by his mother and sexually abused by "the entertainer."
According to the memo, the joint probe by DCFS and the L.A. Police Department took place between Feb. 14 and 27. The memo states, the "investigation by the Sensitive Case Unit concluded the allegations of neglect and sexual abuse to be unfounded both by the LAPD-Wilshire Division and the Department
It is unclear whether Santa Barbara District Attorney Tom Sneedon knew about the Los Angeles investigation before filing charges against Jackson in November.
The investigation was conducted in February, but the document summarizing the findings, which was obtained by The Smoking Gun, is dated Nov. 26 — after the Santa Barbara charges were filed. Either way, the prosecutor has stated publicly that the alleged victim and his family are now fully behind the current charges