My Life and Times

Pool photo by Eric Neitzel

Debbie Rowe, right, leaves court in Santa Maria, Calif., on Wednesday. She was married to Michael Jackson for three years.

Jackson's Ex-Wife Says She Praised Him as Part of Deal
By JOHN M. BRODER

SANTA MARIA, Calif., April 27 - Michael Jackson's ex-wife, the mother of two of his three children, testified at his molesting trial on Wednesday that she had made a videotape praising Mr. Jackson to help repair his image after the broadcast of a documentary in which he admitted sharing his bed with young boys.

Debbie Rowe, who was married to Mr. Jackson for three years before they divorced in 1999, said she sat for a nine-hour videotaped interview in February 2003 after being told that by doing so she would be allowed to see Mr. Jackson and their two children, Prince Michael, now 8, and Paris, now 7. Ms. Rowe, a prosecution witness, said that she had not seen any of them in several years and that the promised reunion never occurred.

Ms. Rowe said Mr. Jackson had asked her in a telephone conversation to make the videotape because the documentary was "full of lies" about his relations with children. She said the phone call had been arranged by several associates of Mr. Jackson who are named as unindicted co-conspirators in the 10-count indictment of Mr. Jackson.

Her testimony was the first to link Mr. Jackson directly to the men who, prosecutors contend, conspired to kidnap the family of the boy, now 15, who has accused Mr. Jackson of molesting him and to force them to make a videotape attesting to his character.

Mr. Jackson is charged with four counts of child molesting, one count of attempted child molesting and four counts of giving alcohol to a minor to aid in sexual abuse, in addition to the conspiracy count.

Ms. Rowe said that though she was married to Mr. Jackson and bore two children by him, she never lived with them. She received limited visits with the children after the divorce and later gave up all parental rights. She is currently fighting in court to have her visiting rights restored.

Ms. Rowe had been an assistant to Mr. Jackson's dermatologist and said she had known Mr. Jackson for more than 20 years. She smiled at the defendant several times during her 40 minutes on the stand on Wednesday. Her testimony is expected to continue on Thursday.

Ms. Rowe said she had been happy to participate in the videotaped interview because she had been led to believe it would bring her back in contact with her children. She insisted that the interview, conducted by Mr. Jackson's associates, had not been scripted and that she had not seen any of the questions in advance.

"I was excited to see Michael and the children," she said, her voice cracking with emotion, "to be reintroduced to them and to be reacquainted with their dad."

She added, "He's my friend."

Near the end of the day's testimony, Ms. Rowe said she had given some untruthful answers during the taped interview. Mr. Jackson's lead lawyer, Thomas A. Mesereau Jr., repeatedly objected when Ronald J. Zonen, the assistant district attorney handling the questioning of Ms. Rowe, tried to establish which of her answers were false. But just before the day's testimony ended, she said she gave untruthful answers to questions about her opinion of Mr. Jackson's fitness as a parent.

Prosecutors are expected to pursue this line of questioning on Thursday and to show excerpts from the videotaped interview.

Earlier on Wednesday, Judge Rodney S. Melville of Santa Barbara County Superior Court denied a request by the defense to declare a mistrial on the basis of what one of Mr. Jackson's lawyers called prosecutorial misconduct. Out of the presence of the jury, the lawyer, Robert M. Sanger, said in his motion that Gordon Auchincloss, a senior deputy district attorney, had raised issues in his questioning of Mr. Jackson's personal filmmaker, Hamid Moslehi, that the judge had earlier ruled out of bounds.

Mr. Auchincloss had questioned Mr. Moslehi about his filming of a Jackson interview conducted by Martin Bashir, a British journalist, and had used the words "sleeping with boys" in a reference to Mr. Jackson's activities.

Though the judge agreed that the wording should not have been used, he denied the request for a mistrial.


Nick Madigan contributed reporting for this article.

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