Jackson case, ex-wife Debbie Rowe called, departures

(28 Apr 2005)
1. Michael Jackson's car arrives
2. Jackson's fans yelling support
3. Michael Jackson and his family, including brother Jermaine, father Joseph and mother Katherine getting out of car
4. Various of Jackson walking into court building
5. Various of Jackson's attorneys Thomas Mesereau Jr. and Susan Yu walking into court building
6. Jackson's father Joseph Jackson and then Michael Jackson walking through metal detectors into court
7. Hamid Moslehi, Jackson's former personal director of photography walking into court
8. Jackson's ex-wife Debbie Rowe walking into court
9. Rowe leaves court
10. Various of Jackson and family departing courthouse
JACKSON'S Ex-WIFE TAKES THE STAND
Michael Jackson's ex-wife, the mother of two of his children, testified on Wednesday in his child molestation trial that the pop star asked her to make a rebuttal video on his behalf in the aftermath of a damaging television documentary about his life.
Jackson is accused of molesting a 13 year-old boy in February or March 2003, giving him alcohol and conspiring to hold the accuser's family captive to get them to rebut the television programme "Living With Michael Jackson".
Taking the stand with Jackson looking on, Debbie Rowe was asked by prosecutor Ron Zonen how she knew Jackson, and she said, "we've been friends and we were married."
She said she knew Jackson for 20 years before they were married, but when asked if they had ever lived together, she said, "We never shared a home."
Rowe was a nurse for one of Jackson's plastic surgeons when they married in 1996, and they had two children together - eight year-old Prince Michael and a seven year-old daughter named Paris.
The couple filed for divorce three years later. Jackson has a third child, Prince Michael II, whose mother has remained anonymous.
In the documentary, the singer tells interviewer Martin Bashir that he lets children sleep in his bed - though not for sexual reasons.
Prosecutors expect Rowe to testify that she was pressured to praise Jackson in a video made after the documentary aired in order to gain visiting rights to her children.
The mother of Jackson's accuser has already claimed a video she recorded, praising Jackson as a father figure to her children, was done from a script.
Rowe testified that Jackson spoke to her by phone in February 2003 and asked her to take part in a TV show that was being made to rebut the documentary. She said Jackson told her that the documentary was full of lies.
Her testimony was the first to suggest Jackson had direct involvement in the production of the rebuttal program.
Rowe, who once gave up her parental rights to their son and daughter but recently had them restored, is embroiled in a Los Angeles family court fight with Jackson over visiting rights to the children.
In other testimony on Wednesday, Jackson's 'videographer' (personal video cameraman) Hamid Moslehi testified about his role in recording the so-called rebuttal video involving the accuser's family.
Moslehi said the accuser, his brother and sister were at his house for two or three hours before the taping began and he did not see them rehearsing.
He said that the mother was there for about an hour before the taping and that he did not see her reading, rehearsing or being coached.
He also said that the mother confided in him at times but that she never told him that she was being falsely imprisoned, that she was receiving death threats, that Jackson had given her children alcohol or that the singer improperly touched her son.
Moslehi said she also never asked him to call police.

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