Witness: "Silver Fox" Touched Culkin

For the Frenchman, the sight was almost enough to make him drop his plate of fries: Right there, in the arcade, Silver Fox's hand was inside Macaulay Culkin's pants.

So went the testimony Friday of Phillip LeMarque, aka the Frenchman, in the molestation trial of Michael Jackson, aka Silver Fox.

LeMarque was the latest in a string of ex-Jackson employees to take the stand and recount lurid tales of their former boss with young boys. He also was the latest to be portrayed by the defense as being on the make.

At Jackson's Neverland Ranch, LeMarque was the majordomo, in charge of preparing and organizing meals for guests; his wife, Stella, was the chef. The two lived and worked at Neverland for about 10 months, beginning in 1991, LeMarque testified. One night, at about 3 a.m., LeMarque received a call that "Silver Fox want[ed] some french fries." Silver Fox, he said, was Jackson's Neverland "code name."

Lemarque said he prepared the late-night snack, and delivered it to the arcade room where he found Jackson playing a game based on the singer's Thriller album with overnight guest Culkin, then about 11

"He was holding the kid because the kid was small [and] couldn't reach the controls," LeMarque testified. "...His right hand was holding the kid, maybe mid-waist. And the left hand was down into his pants."

LeMarque said the sight shocked him--"I almost dropped the french fries."

The LeMarque testimony came on the heels of Adrian McManus'. She was the ex-Neverland maid who said Thursday she saw Jackson kiss a young Culkin on the cheek while fondling the boy's "rear end."

Culkin has publicly denied being molested by Jackson. The former Home Alone star, now 24, is said to want no part of the trial. He is, however, on the defense's witness list.

The defense was eager to combat LeMarque's sensational testimony with sensational details on LeMarque's own subsequent career in Internet porn, but Superior Court Judge Rodney S. Melville ruled the topic off-limits.

In theory then, Jackson jurors will never know what readers of the Smoking Gun already do--that LeMarque once operated a site called Virtual Sin, featuring "hours of live sex" and "XXX videos."

And if the jurors stay off the Web, it's possible they'll also remain none the wiser about Never Never Land, the "complete story" of LeMarque and his wife's tenure with Jackson. The book, promising to reveal "the most hush-hush topic at the ranch that barely anyone has ever unveiled," is available from LeMarque's restaurant-consulting Website, BestEatz.com. For $7.95 a download, the buyer also receives Jackson's "two favorite recipes" and the identity of the singer's "favorite soda."

With his hands tied on the Web porn matter, defense attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr. still managed to work in a mention of an adult-film star whom he suggested acted as a go-between for LeMarque and the tabloid press. LeMarque denied ever selling his story to the supermarket-stand media.

But Mesereau pressed the issue, asking LeMarque if he told the porn star he wanted $500,000 for his Culkin story. LeMarque said it was the porn star who pressed for the pricey price tag, and advised him to goose the tale. "Then we realized the guy was so sleazy...," LeMarque said. "So we backed out, and we said, 'We are not game.' "

Like other ex-Neverland staffers called to the Santa Maria, California, courthouse this week, LeMarque was involved in a Jackson lawsuit. But LeMarque maintained that he sued Jackson's corporation, not the singer personally, in a dispute over unpaid overtime. LeMarque and his wife eventually received a settlement from Jackson, he said.

Jackson, 46, is formally accused of molesting one boy, then 13, at Neverland in 2003. He has pleaded innocent to all charges.

Elsewhere, McManus returned to the stand Friday. To mark the occasion, Mesereau unloaded on the ex-maid, asking her if she'd ever stolen candy bars, Super Soaker guns and commemorative Pepsi cans from Neverland, if she'd ever sold tales of Jackson's "kinky sex secrets" with onetime wife Lisa Marie Presley to the Star, and if she'd ever told Leslie Gomez, "the manager of McFrugal's," that Jackson never harmed a child.

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For the record, McManus denied doing anything of the sort. And, to her credit, only the McFrugal's question seemed to momentarily trip her up.

"Do you know Leslie Gomez?" Mesereau asked.

"No, I don't," McManus replied.

"Do you know she was the manager of McFrugal's?" Mesereau continued.

That description clicked with McManus. Yes, she said, "I think I know her as Beaver."

For all of McManus' denials, though, she acknowledged that she and her codefendants in a wrongful termination lawsuit funded their legal fight by collectively taking in about $32,000 from the sale of their stories to TV and magazine tabloids.

Melville, meanwhile, closed the abbreviated court day by reminding jurors that "everybody is watching you"--an apparent reference to unfounded rumors that jurors had been overheard by a reporter mocking witnesses.

In other matters, Melville rejected the latest defense request for a mistrial. Jackson's attorneys argued last week that prosecution witnesses were swapping stories. The judge found no misconduct had occurred.