Child sex charge Jacko prepares to surrender

Michael Jackson was tonight preparing to surrender to police in California were he is wanted on multiple counts of child sex abuse involving a 12-year-old boy said to be a cancer victim.

Michael Jackson was tonight preparing to surrender to police in California where he is wanted on multiple counts of child sex abuse involving a 12-year-old boy said to be a cancer victim.

His lawyer said he had negotiated with authorities for the pop superstar to turn himself in and ”confront these charges.”

Mark Geragos declined to specify when Jackson would return to Santa Barbara, where throngs of camera crews and reporters awaited his possible arrival at county jails and area airports.

“I have made arrangements with the sheriff and the district attorney for Mr Jackson to come back and confront these charges,” Geragos said.

The 45-year-old singer left Las Vegas in his private jet on Wednesday.

Reports today said he was escorted by Santa Barbara County sheriff’s deputies to his jet and flew from a private terminal at Las Vegas McCarran International Airport.

Jackson was expected to surrender to authorities as soon as today, and law enforcement officials said charges would be filed.

A family friend, Steve Manning, said Jackson’s family were to Las Vegas to support him.

“He feels he’s been wrongly accused and he’s going to fight this tooth and nail,” Manning said.

”He's at war right now and he’s going to use any weapon he has to fight these charges.”

His arrest warrant set bail at €2.7m, and Jackson was directed to give up his passport, authorities said.

“Get over here and get checked in,” District Attorney Thomas Sneddon advised the fallen King of Pop.

Jackson was in Las Vegas filming a music video when dozens of law enforcement agents swarmed his Neverland Ranch compound, near Santa Barbara on Tuesday to serve a search warrant.

Jackson is charged by the state with lewd or lascivious acts with a child under age 14, punishable by three to eight years in prison, law enforcement officials said.

“Michael would never harm a child in any way,” Jackson spokesman Stuart Backerman said in a statement. “These scurrilous and totally unfounded allegations will be proven false in a courtroom.”

The New York Post said the alleged 12-year-old victim is a cancer patient whose “last wish” was to meet Jackson.

The boy told his psychiatrist that Jackson plied him with wine and sleeping pills when he stayed at the star’s Neverland Ranch, the newspaper said.

Fox News said that after Jackson and the boy met, the star allegedly began to pay the family’s medical bills and assisted them financially in other ways

He allegedly knew several months ago that the boy’s family was concerned about his relationship with their son, said the US TV channel.

The sex abuse allegations began to come out in the spring when the boy’s schoolmates, who apparently knew about his relationship with Jackson, began to taunt and tease him, said Fox.

The taunting caused the boy’s mother to seek legal advice.

The lawyer suggested the boy see a psychiatrist, who after speaking to the boy decided to contact the police.

Similar allegations surfaced against Jackson a decade ago, but they never led to the filing of criminal charges and in 1994 the probe became inactive.

Jackson had maintained his innocence but paid a multimillion-dollar civil settlement, and the child would not testify in any criminal proceeding.

Sneddon said this case was different because he had a co-operative victim and because of a change in state law ”specifically because of the 1993-94 Michael Jackson investigation.”

In a British TV documentary this year, Jackson said he had slept in a bed with many children. ”When you say bed you’re thinking sexual,” he said in the interview. “It’s not sexual, we’re going to sleep. I tuck them in. ... It’s very charming, it’s very sweet.”