State Bars Workers From Neverland Ranch Due To Insurance Lapse By Associated Press - March 10, 2006LOS OLIVOS, Calif. (AP) _ The state barred workers from Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch on Thursday and fined the singer $69,000 because the estate's workers compensation insurance policy had lapsed.
The "stop order" was issued after a worker reported Tuesday that a co-worker who had been injured did not have the state-required health coverage, said Dean Fryer, spokesman for the California Department of Industrial Relations.
Regulators determined coverage for 69 employees at the ranch in Santa Barbara County lapsed on Jan. 10, Fryer said.
"In effect, it shuts them down," Fryer said. "They're not permitting workers to be employed."
A call to Jackson's spokeswoman seeking comment was not immediately returned.
Jackson, 47, has lived in the Persian Gulf nation of Bahrain since being acquitted of child molestation charges last year.
The 2,600-acre ranch boasts amusement park rides and has been home to elephants, giraffes, snakes, orangutans, tigers and a crocodile. Fryer said local animal welfare agencies were notified of the shutdown so they could make arrangements to feed and care for the animals.
The ranch operators have five days to appeal the order and fine, Fryer said.
Meanwhile, if workers are seen at the ranch in violation of the order, the department can seek criminal charges or file a civil lawsuit, Fryer said.
It's the latest in a slew of worker complaints against the ranch.
Since the beginning of the year, 47 employees have complained to the department that they haven't been paid, Fryer said.
On Tuesday, the department sent a letter to an accounting firm that handles Jackson's business, demanding payment of $306,000 in wages, and an investigation into the complaints is continuing, Fryer said.
A call to a Los Angeles office of the accounting firm, Bernstein, Fox, Whitman, Goldman & Sloan LLP, was not immediately returned Thursday.
Fryer noted that the department has not heard directly from the worker who was said to be injured, but the report was enough to get the investigation moving. The department hopes to hear from that worker, he said.
It's not the first investigation of activities at the ranch.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture sent an inspector to the ranch in December in response to a complaint from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. PETA based its complaint on European tabloid reports that animals were kept in substandard conditions.
Federal officials concluded that there was no mistreatment. |