Fabled Neverland Ranch, Michael Jackson's Peter Pan kingdom, has be shut down by California authorities because the pop star has failed to pay and insure his employees for months.
The singer has been fined more than $169,000 and the state's Division of Labor Standards ordered him to stop using any employee labor at the sprawling 2,700-acre ranch in Los Olivos, Calif., until he obtains workers' compensation insurance, according to a document posted on TheSmokingGun.com Web site.
Futhermore, Santa Barbara County animal welfare officials said they are monitoring the situation at Neverland and the zoo inmates - the elephants, giraffes, orangutans, tigers and a crocodile - will be removed, they said, if the feel the animals are endangered.
Jackson has been been living in Bahrain and Europe since his acquittal on child-molestation charges last June, and has failed to pay more than 30 ranch workers at least $306,000 since December 19, 2005. That was the day before Jackson faced a massive foreclosure on $270 million in loans he owes. Since then, his lawyers have been attempting to refinance the debt to save him from financial ruin.
