N.Y. congressman calls late singer a ‘pervert’
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NEW YORK - A New York congressman who is considering a Senate run has posted a video calling Michael Jackson a “pervert’’ and questioning the exhaustive media coverage of the pop star’s death.
Representative Peter King, a Long Island Republican, said in the YouTube video that society is glorifying a “low-life’’ while hard-working teachers, police officers, firefighters, and veterans don’t get the credit they deserve.
“This guy was a pervert,’’ King said in the video, shot Sunday by a staff member outside an American Legion hall. “He was a child molester. He was a pedophile. And to be giving this much coverage to him, day in and day out, what does it say about us as a country?’’
A jury acquitted Jackson in 2005 of charges that he molested a 13-year-old cancer survivor. In a 2003 documentary, Jackson admitted to letting children sleep with him in his bed at his California home, but he said it wasn’t sexual.
In a telephone interview yesterday, King said that Jackson had “admitted to sleeping with young boys, traveling with young boys. . . . That’s the definition of pedophilia.’’
He said Jackson may have been a good singer and dancer, but added: “The bottom line is, would you let your child or grandchild be in the same room with Michael Jackson?’’
Ken Sunshine, a spokesman for Jackson’s family, declined to respond to King’s criticism.
King said he decided to post his video critique after speaking with constituents over the Fourth of July weekend. “A number of them were mentioning to me, ‘When’s this stuff with Michael Jackson going to end?’ ’’ he said.
