A man with a warehouse full of Michael Jackson memorabilia turned over a pair of underwear and other items to authorities investigating the pop star’s child molestation case.
The briefs and several other items, including photos of Jackson posing with two boys, were seized several weeks ago by New Jersey prosecutors at the request of California authorities, the New York Post reported Sunday.
Henry V. Vaccaro Sr., who received the memorabilia in a bankruptcy settlement with the Jackson family, said he found white Calvin Klein briefs balled up in the bottom of a wardrobe containing several of the pop star’s costumes.
Robert Honecker, a prosecutor in Monmouth County, confirmed that his office collected one pair of underwear and other evidence from Vaccaro’s warehouse in Asbury Park on March 5 and returned to the warehouse later in the month with California investigators to collect more items. Honecker would not say why the items were sought.
A spokesman for the district attorney’s office in Santa Barbara County, Calif., declined to comment, citing a gag order issued by the judge in the pop star’s case.
Vaccaro said he was told that authorities plan to use the underwear for DNA comparison.
Vaccaro said officers who visited the warehouse found, among other things, two handwritten notes from Jackson and a lighthearted list of “rules,” written by a youngster, for children staying at the singer’s Neverland Ranch in Santa Maria, Calif.
Among the rules: Children had to watch two episodes of “The Three Stooges” a day, know the Peter Pan story by heart and to be “idiots and act crazy at all times.”
Other items taken included a note in Jackson’s handwriting urging his sister-in-law to read to her children a news article about child molestation. “It brings out how even your own relatives can be molesters of children,” the note read, according to Vaccaro.
The memorabilia collection includes gold-trimmed costumes, financial documents, letters, awards and one of Jackson’s first outfits worn with the Jackson 5.