Jackson 'plied victim with wine and pills'

THE 12-year-old boy who claimed he was molested by Michael Jackson is a cancer patient whose "last wish" was to meet Jackson.

The boy may have confessed to his psychiatrist that the pop singer plied him with wine and sleeping pills when he allegedly molested him, sources told Foxnews.com's Roger Friedman.

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

Jackson's camp, sources said, have been preparing to face such accusations for months.

They plan to hold the boy's mother up to severe scrutiny, and will likely argue that when Jackson tried to end his financial support of the boy and his family, the mother became "a scorned woman".

"She's very screwed up," said one source. "There's a videotape of her acting weird, too. And Michael was very kind to her, even getting an apartment for her boyfriend."

Jackson's team's argument will be, according to sources, that when the boy's mother was told by Jackson's people that the free ride was over, she ran to a lawyer.

A family friend, Steve Manning, told another morning television news show yesterday that Jackson's family came to Las Vegas to support him.

"He feels he's been wrongly accused and he's going to fight this tooth and nail," Mr 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 $3 million and Jackson was directed to give up his passport, authorities said.

The 45-year-old singer was in Las Vegas when dozens of law enforcement agents swarmed his Neverland Ranch compound on Tuesday to serve a search warrant.

Jackson was filming a music video with R&B singer R Kelly , US Weekly magazine told Fox News.

Jackson left Las Vegas in his private jet on Wednesday, according to reports in yesterday's Los Angeles Times and Santa Barbara News-Press.

He was escorted by Santa Barbara County sheriff's deputies to his own jet and flew from a private terminal at the McCarran International Airport, according to an airport security guard Jackson is charged by the state with lewd or lascivious acts with a child under the age of 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."

Similar allegations surfaced against Jackson a decade ago, but criminal charges were never filed.