SANTA MARIA, Calif — The man Michael Jackson once paid to guard his privacy testified Thursday about the time he peeked into a bathroom window and caught the pop star performing oral sex on a prepubescent boy.

"I saw them standing in the nude ... facing each other," said Ralph Chacon, a former Neverland security guard who worked the graveyard shift from 1991 to 1994.

"I saw that Mr. Jackson was caressing the boy's hair, he was kissing him on his head, and his face, his lips," Chacon said. "He started kissing him on the shoulders and started going down to his nipples. Started sucking his nipples. Started going down to his penis and putting it in his mouth. And about that time I just ... I left."

"You say you saw him go down and do what?" District Attorney Thomas Sneddon asked.

Story continues

advertisement

"He put the little boy's penis in his mouth," Chacon said.

"Did you actually see that?" Sneddon asked again.

"Yes, sir," he said.

Jurors in Jackson's child molestation trial listened intently, took notes and peered over at Jackson, as if to gauge his response.

Jackson quietly stared at Chacon, slowly shook his head, and whispered to his attorney.

The two men have waged legal battles in court before. Chacon was part of Jackson's inner circle until he took part in a failed 1995 civil suit against the singer for wrongful termination and was hit with a countersuit and $1.4 million legal judgment that drove him into bankruptcy.

Jackson is on trial for allegedly sexually molesting a young cancer survivor in 2003. The judge ruled last week that prosecutors may introduce testimony, including Chacon's, about prior "bad acts" to demonstrate the singer's alleged criminal pattern.

Jackson, who maintains he is innocent, was never charged with wrongdoing in any of the prior alleged incidents.

Chacon, a stocky man who was weeping on the stand by the end of several rounds of questioning from both sides, testified that the oral sex occurred in late 1992 or early 1993 between Jackson and a boy named Jordie Chandler, who was then 9 or 10 and a frequent Neverland sleepover guest.

Chacon said he never confronted Jackson about what he saw, nor about a second incident that allegedly occurred with Chandler weeks later in Jackson's recreation room.

"I saw [Jackson] enter the back door of the rec room, and he went over to Jordie. He bent over and said something to him, and then he kissed him," Chacon said.

He said the two scurried off to gaze at Peter Pan and Tinkerbell from a lit-up window display that hangs in a breezeway behind the main house.

Ralph Chacon, former Neverland security guard

"Could you describe to the jury the positions of the child and Mr. Jackson?" Sneddon asked.

"Well, they were looking at the display, the Tinkerbell lighting up. And he was — Jordie was in front, Mr. Jackson was in back, and he had his hands over his back, towards the front. And then [Jackson] turned him around, kissed him," Chandler said. "It was passionate, but it didn't last that long. And then his hands went down to his private areas. And then they ran inside the house."

In the mid-1990s, without admitting wrongdoing, Jackson entered into an agreement with Chandler and his mother, paying them more than $20 million for their cooperation and silence. The agreement effectively stymied a Santa Barbara County grand jury investigation into the allegations. No charges were ever filed.

Chandler is not expected to testify, but his mother may take the stand.

Revenge testimony?

While Chacon's testimony lent prosecutors a cringeworthy narrative against the King of Pop, defense attorney Thomas Mesereau challenged the witness' credibility with fierce questioning about the lawsuit that backfired.

Chacon was one of five former Neverland employees who engaged in the failed six-month-long civil trial. Specific details of the suit were not disclosed, but Chacon claimed that he quit his job at Neverland after being intimidated and threatened by Jackson's armed personal bodyguards, and that his personal phone calls from Neverland were being taped.

In the end, Jackson countersued and a jury found that Chacon and his co-plaintiffs acted with fraud, oppression and malice against Jackson. They were ordered to pay more than $1 million apiece for Jackson's legal fees.

"After a six-month trial, this is a good way to get even with him, isn't it?" Mesereau sneered at the witness. The question was stricken.

Mesereau avoided delving into Chacon's account of the lewd acts. Instead, the attorney focused on portraying the former repo man and security guard as an extortionist with sinister financial motives.

"Do you remember telling a therapist that you'd rather get a million from Mr. Jackson than work?" Mesereau asked.

The witness conceded that he was evaluated by a therapist as part of the litigation, but did not recall the statement.

"In that lawsuit, you tried to extort Mr. Jackson, didn't you?" Mesereau said.

"No sir," Chacon said.

At one point during redirect questioning, when Chacon was asked about borrowing money after a relative's death, his voice faltered and he began to cry, as if overwhelmed by his lengthy turn on the stand.

Chacon also conceded during cross-examination that he and his co-plaintiffs sold their story to tabloid press to pay for the suit.

"Are you planning to go to a tabloid after you testify today?" Mesereau asked.

"No sir," Chacon said. "I just want to go home."

Caught in the act?

Mesereau was warmed up for battle by the time prosecutors called their second witness Thursday — a former Neverland maid who said she saw the singer plant unsavory kisses on several boys, including actor Macaulay Culkin.

"I saw Mr. Jackson and Macaulay in the library," said Adrian McManus, who described the then-child actor as a "very wild" and "destructive" troublemaker who had sleepover parties in Jackson's bedroom.

"Mr. Jackson was kissing him on the cheek, and he had his hand by his leg, by his rear end," McManus said.

Caulkin has repeatedly stated in public that he was never molested by Jackson.

McManus said she saw Jackson engage in the same kiss-on-the-cheek and pat-on-the-rear-end act with other boys, including Jordie Chandler.

"I saw Mr. Jackson kissing on Jordie, his cheek, his mouth," McManus said, indicating that she saw them bare-chested in Jackson's bedroom while she was in the upper loft area dusting. They had walked in, she explained, and were unaware of her presence.

"[Jackson's] hand was on his crotch. I was shocked. Flushed. I didn't say nothing. I stayed up there very quietly and waited for them to leave," she said.

But McManus, who was a co-plaintiff in the failed lawsuit and was also deposed in 1993 for the Santa Barbara grand jury investigation into the Chandler allegations, suffered under cross-examination.

In her deposition, McManus stated she never saw Jackson molesting any children. On Thursday, she testified that she lied during the eight days she was deposed, because she said she greatly feared repercussions from the Jackson camp.

Mesereau attacked the witness on two fronts, painting her as a disgruntled former employee for the wrongful termination suit, and calling her a perjurer on the stand for lying to the grand jury.

"You said [in the deposition] that you trusted Michael Jackson and would leave your own son alone with him, isn't that right?" Mesereau asked.

The witness conceded that she had said so.

"You originally said that you never saw Jordie Chandler alone in Michael Jackson's bedroom," Mesereau said. "Are you telling this jury that throughout this deposition you committed perjury?"

"I believe the whole time, I did not tell the truth," McManus said.

"Did you believe you were committing a crime when you did that?"

"I really didn't think of it that way," she said.

Jackson faces up to 20 years if convicted.