His signature accessory used to be a single sequined glove. On Thursday, his major accessory was a pair of handcuffs.

Authorities in Santa Barbara, California, handcuffed, fingerprinted, photographed and briefly detained Michael Jackson, as the fallen superstar was formally booked on child molestation charges.

The online release of his ghoulish mug shot, showing a wide-eyed, slight (five-foot-11, just 120 pounds, per booking stats) Jackson, caused the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department Website to be jammed with visitors on Thursday afternoon.

"He's come back specifically to confront these charges head on," celebrity attorney du jour Mark Geragos, now of Jackson's defense team, told reporters outside the sheriff's office.

Geragos' spin aside, his client didn't have any choice but to confront the charges "head on," as it were. On Wednesday, officials issued a warrant for the 45-year-old Jackson's arrest.

Jackson was released from custody Thursday after posting $3 million bail. Upon leaving jail, he flashed the victory sign, offered a thumbs-up and blew a kiss to photographers, before being whisked away, bound for Las Vegas, where he and his children have been staying for weeks while he worked on a music video. An arraignment was set for January 9.

High-profile lawyer Geragos, who represented Winona Ryder in her shoplifting trial and is currently defending accused killer Scott Peterson, did the talking for Jackson.

"He is greatly outraged by the bringing of these charges. He considers these to be a big lie," Geragos said.

On Thursday afternoon, Jackson spokesman Stuart Backerman released another statement on behalf of the under-siege performer. The phrase "big lie" was repeated, and an all-new, metaphorically dense profession of innocence, "Lies run sprints, but the truth runs marathons. The truth will win this marathon in court," included.

Authorities have declined to discuss the specifics of the case against the singer. The law he is accused of violating speaks of lewd acts with a child under the age of 14. According to the Los Angeles Times, the reputed victim is a 12-year-old boy who said that last winter Jackson plied him with wine and molested him on "several occasions" at the entertainer's 2,600-acre Neverland Ranch, a would-be child's paradise.

On Tuesday, an army of investigators scoured Neverland and two other Jackson properties in California for evidence.

Jackson arrived in Santa Barbara on Thursday morning from Las Vegas. Upon landing at the local airport, Jackson's jet taxied up to a hangar and hid its nose inside, ostensibly to provide the passengers (including the star, his family and a bodyguard) a modicum of privacy as leering news choppers hovered above.

Cameras then trailed Jackson, already in the custody of law enforcement, as he was driven from the airport to the Sheriff's station. The day's first actual Jackson sighting came around noon as the black-clad pop icon exited a black SUV, his hands cuffed behind his back, and entered the station for booking. His long black hair obscured his famous--and famously altered--face.

The image of the handcuffed Jackson, replayed repeatedly on cable news networks, angered older brother and former Jackson 5 member Jermaine Jackson.

In an angry phone interview with CNN on Thursday, the 48-year-old Jackson cursed out the media for participating in "a modern-day lynching." When the anchor tried to calm the protective sibling--and perhaps to prevent further F-bombs from being dropped live on the air--Jermaine Jackson told her that, no, she didn't understand what his family was going through "because you're white."

More to the point, Jermaine Jackson said that the oft-fractious Jacksons supported "Michael 100 percent, 1,000 percent. Michael is innocent."

Geragos said his client looked forward to getting the case to a courtroom for trial.

In 1994, Jackson avoided just that--and formal criminal charges--when he paid out what was reported to be millions of dollars in order to settle a civil lawsuit brought by the family of a 13-year-old boy, whose claims of sexual misconduct spurred another criminal sexual misconduct probe in late 1993.

Then, as now, the accusations involved misdeeds in which Jackson allegedly engaged at Neverland and other locations. And then, as now, the case was pursued by Santa Barbara County's top prosecutor, District Attorney Thomas W. Sneddon Jr.

At a news conference Wednesday, Sneddon denied that he timed the new case to undermine Jackson's latest greatest-hits collection, Number Ones, which was released Tuesday.

Sneddon claims he hasn't personalized the Jackson case, but Jackson has taken personal swipes at Sneddon in the past.

On the 1995 album, HIStory Past, Present and Future, Book 1, in the song "D.S.," Jackson barks at the prosecutor nicknamed "Mad Dog," repeatedly snarling the refrain, "Tom Sneddon is a cold man." (The liner notes record a less libelous version of the lyrics: "Dom Sheldon is a cold man.")

However, the coldest relationship in this situation may be the one between Michael Jackson and the record-buying public: Since the first allegations of Jackson's misconduct surfaced a decade ago, the performer has deteriorated from being the multimedia force known as the King of Pop to being more of a king of flops--Jackson is now an accused child molester and an unsigned, disfigured, middle-aged has-been whose catalog of onetime mega-hit albums sometimes moves fewer than 100 albums a week.

Thursday's London Times reported that Jackson's fortune, which once stood at $750 million, is gone, replaced by $240 million in debt. Also gone, according to the paper, is the promotional blitz planned by Jackson's label to promote Number Ones, the final release under his contract with Sony's Epic Records.

Furthermore, CBS on Wednesday nixed a Jackson tribute special, Michael Jackson Number Ones, which had been scheduled to air November 26, the final night of the November sweeps.

Still, Jackson has vowed to fight back, and fight on. "Michael is going to defend himself with the force of his spirit," the release from his spokesman said Thursday.