Michael Jackson bought his way out of child sex abuse accusations a decade ago.

The tarnished King of Pop will not be that lucky this time.

On the eve of his new CD release, the self-imploding star is once again dangerously off the charts. Less than a year after he told an interviewer that he still sees nothing wrong with taking young boys to his bed, the Gloved One is now facing multiple counts of child molestation.

For Santa Barbara district attorney Thomas Snedden, it's a long time coming.

Back in 1993, his case against Jackson disintegrated when the 13-year-old victim refused to co-operate after settling his civil lawsuit against the pop star for more than $20 million.

Now the laws have changed, no amount of money can prevent a victim from having to testify, and suddenly the Man in the Mirror could be facing at least three years behind bars.

His arrest could finally bring down the curtain on show business' longest running freak show. Jackson's endless plastic surgeries have left him with a nose so whittled it seems to be held on by a thread and cheekbones so chiselled they could slice a tomato. After years of bleaching his skin with Benoquin, he's become a grotesque caricature of a female alien. Or as one commentator once noted, only in America can you be born a black man and end up a white woman.

He has been the supermarket tabloids' poster boy on countless occasions: Jackson tells a group of Jehovah's Witnesses that he is the Messiah; photos show him sleeping in a hyperbaric chamber to prevent him from aging; the eccentric star wants to buy the remains of the Elephant Man.

As his career has nosedived, Jackson has seen himself as the victim of an elaborate plot. And one does not want to get on his bad side. In 2000, Jackson drew up a list of 25 enemies -- including Steven Spielberg and David Geffen -- and paid a voodoo doctor hundreds of thousands of dollars to ensure they would all meet an untimely end.

Weird stunts

His love life has been the stuff of scrutiny for decades. The singer who sees himself as Elvis Presley's heir wed The King's daughter in April 1994 in what was widely acknowledged as yet another of his strange publicity stunts. His second quickie marriage of convenience to Debbie Rowe, his dermatologist's assistant, raised more eyebrows and provided him with two of his three children.

He has said that he wants 10 kids in all, but it was the dangling of his third child out a hotel window in Berlin almost exactly a year ago that had the world questioning his abilities as a father. To allay concerns, he took his children out to the zoo, replete with burgundy burqas covering their bewildered faces.

While his album sales plummet, he spends more than $1.2 million a month and even went on a $6-million shopping spree in a single Las Vegas store for the benefit of a documentary on his life.

Through all his off-the-wall behaviour, Jackson has insisted that he cares only about children. "They are the future," he said. "They can heal the world."

He may love children, but it is his particular affinity for prepubescent boys which has landed him in trouble once again.

A decade ago, a 13-year-old boy told authorities he had befriended Jackson when the superstar stopped at his stepfather's Rent-a-Wreck after his car broke down. Soon, he and his mother were sleeping over at Neverland ranch and jetting with Jackson to Las Vegas, Monaco and Europe.

In his deposition, the boy says that at first, they slept together with no contact. Jackson later progressed to kissing him and putting his tongue in his mouth, but when the boy protested, Jackson began to cry and told him that his other friends saw nothing wrong with it. "Michael Jackson said that I did not love him as much as this other friend."

Their sexual relationship gradually intensified until he claimed: "Michael Jackson masturbated me many times both with his hand and with his mouth."

Jackson, he said, told him "that I should not tell anyone what had happened. He said this was a secret."

Jackson told him he had to repeat six wishes three times a day for them to come true:

"1. No wenches, bitches, heifers or hoes,

2. Never give up your 'bliss,'

3. Live with me in Neverland forever,

4. No conditioning,

5. Never grow up,

6. Be better than best friends forever."

The relationship ended in July 1993 when the boy's father regained custody from his mother. Soon after, the dad, a Los Angeles dentist-screenwriter, was accusing Jackson of sexual abuse.

The 13-year-old boy had drawn an explicit picture showing mottled marks on Jackson's testicles and a dark spot on his left buttock. California prosecutors agreed not to arrest and handcuff Jackson if he agreed to come in and have his genitals photographed.

The boy turned out to have an unerring eye for accuracy.

Nor was he the only one to make accusations against Jackson. A former maid said she found the Peter Pan of pop in a sleeping bag with her son and saw him nude many times with young boys.

California investigators discovered that Jackson surrounded himself with boys between 8 and 12 who were swiftly shown the door as soon as they sprouted any facial hair. Called Michael's "special friends," they managed to identify one every year for 10 to 12 years.

But none of the children would testify. Some, like the maid's son, were reportedly bought off with large sums of money. Other families were threatened to keep silent.

Before the state could conclude their investigation or lay charges, the original victim had settled with Jackson for a multitude of millions. The boy, then 14, refused to testify against him and under California law at the time, he could not be compelled to do so.

The case remained open, but inactive. It seems the Santa Barbara DA's office was just biding its time.

Jackson certainly didn't seem to be changing his ways. He shocked viewers earlier this year when he said he was still allowing young boys to sleep over in his bed.

"Why can't you share your bed?" he asked Martin Bashir in the documentary, Living With Michael Jackson. "The most loving thing to do, is to share your bed with someone."

Considering the charges against him, the pop star may soon find himself sleeping in a very narrow prison bed -- all alone.