AdultFYI.com comment: As some adult news sites seem to be in the habit of cherry picking stories off others, so do the big boys. The following was published by the N.Y. Daily News, but it should be noted that the Fox News website was the first to break this story a couple of weeks ago linking Michael Jackson to mob kingpin Alvin Malnik.

NY DAILY NEWS: Embattled pop star Michael Jackson has added a new name to his long list of strange bedfellows: Miami Beach loan king Alvin Malnik, long said to be heir apparent to legendary mob finance wizard Meyer Lansky.

Jackson, haunted by his penchant for monkeys, extreme body modification and the affections of boys, has found a new best friend in the flamboyant Malnik, a man dogged as much by legend and myth as the singer himself.

It is to Malnik, a multimillionaire whose suspected mob connections have been fodder for federal files since the 1960s, that Jackson is believed to have turned for help in erasing debt said to approach $200 million.

A lawyer, real estate developer and proprietor of the supertrendy Miami Beach hot spot The Forge, Malnik is also owner of Title Loans of America, a national chain that lends money legally at annual percentage rates reaching 264% – higher than most loansharks’ vig.

He concedes he gave the pop star financial advice – as he has to members of the Saudi royal family – but has denied he lent Jackson considerable sums or put up the $3 million bail when the singer was charged last month with molesting a 12-year-old, cancer-ridden boy.

As Jackson’s fiscal woes mounted, the singer began to be seen more and more with the Miami Beach mogul, often dining with him at The Forge.

By April, their names began cropping up together in Miami gossip columns. The self-styled King of Pop was living in royal splendor at the loan king’s lavish home in Ocean Ridge, Fla., while he tried unsuccessfully to sell his Neverland estate in California for $50 million.

The relationship hit its showbiz zenith on May 17 this year, when Jackson – decked out in a vintage ’70s glitter shirt and outsized Afro wig – was host of a 70th birthday disco party for Malnik at The Forge. In attendance were B.B. King, Smokey Robinson, F. Lee Bailey and a gaggle of South Florida glitterati.

The Daily News’ Rush and Molloy column noted that guests “were surprised to see how openly affectionate the 44-year-old musician was … toward several boys who appeared to be in their teens.”

By then, the local press was having a speculation field day. Asked one headline: “Is Jacko Married to the Mob?”

Mob stoolie Vincent Teresa once swore in an affidavit: “It was a known fact among the criminal world that dealing with Al Malnik was the same as dealing with Meyer Lansky.”

Malnik, who declined to be interviewed for this story, has long maintained he set eyes on the famous gangster only once – in a chance encounter in an elevator.

The feds opened their first dossier on Malnik in 1963. It was two years after he graduated, first in his class, from Miami Law School. He had helped set up the Bank of World Commerce in Nassau, the Bahamas, an alleged loot laundry that investigators said involved “some of the nation’s top gangsters.”

Acquitted on tax fraud charges in 1964, Malnik was heard discussing Lansky two years later on bugs placed by cops probing whether casino profits were invested overseas on the mobster’s behalf.

Government agents have linked Malnik’s name to Lansky ever since. When the mobster died in 1983, Reader’s Digest labeled him the “heir apparent.” The moniker stuck.

But by then, Malnik – who purchased his first Rolls-Royce at age 29 – had long been a fixture in Miami’s fast lane.

In 1964, he made his first venture into showbiz, organizing a video jukebox company, Scopitone, that was touted as a music-industry revolution. Problem was, its stockholders included Vincent (Jimmy Blue Eyes) Alo, a convicted criminal and lifelong pal of Lansky, and Irving Kaye, who was denied a Nevada gaming license because of his questionable associations.

In 1966, the U.S. attorney in New York secretly indicted Malnik on charges of using the mail to defraud Scopitone investors. In 1971, prosecutors quietly dropped the case.

Meanwhile, after Malnik opened The Forge in 1969, it rose quickly to the top of Miami’s night scene, attracting celebrities such as Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Richard Burton and even Richard Nixon, who came with his shady financier pal, Bebe Rebozo.

The indelible Lansky stain deepened after the crime czar’s stepson, Richard Schwartz, shot and killed the son of mobster Vincent Teriaca in a dispute that began at the bar of The Forge.

Two years later, Malnik’s Rolls-Royce was blown up in the parking lot of the Cricket Club, a Miami high-rise he developed with Cal Covens, who served three years in prison after being convicted with Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa of conspiracy and fraud. No one was injured in the blast, and no suspects were arrested.

Through it all, Malnik continued to thrive, living on a palatial 34-acre estate in Boca Raton, complete with bowling alley and an arena for Arabian horses.

When he married for a second time in 1995 to a woman 36 years his junior, 288 guests attend his wedding. He presented the bride with a 50-carat emerald and diamond necklace.

Malnik would be wildly rich even if his only business was Title Loans of America, which provides quick-cash loans at interest rates of up to 22% a month by capitalizing on lending law loopholes.

For years, critics have tried to change the law. They say it allows legalized loansharking. That’s something even Meyer Lansky couldn’t pull off.