Whatever prosecutors hoped to achieve by calling Michael Jackson’s former wife to the witness stand, it was the defense lawyers who left happy at the end of the day Thursday.
Deborah Rowe, mother of two of Jackson’s children, testified that her former husband was “generous to a fault, a good father, great with kids, puts other people ahead of him” but had surrounded himself with lying, greedy business associates who were “opportunistic vultures” seeking to profit from his talent and fame (and perhaps even his infamy).Furthermore, Rowe said that when she gave an interview to repair damage to the pop idol’s image after a devastating Martin Bashir TV documentary about him (in which he said there was nothing wrong in sleeping with children), she was not coached or pressured or scripted in any way.
“She was just devastating for the prosecution,” said Andrew Cohen, an attorney and one of the TV legal analysts in court Thursday. “It was stunning,” Cohen said. Rowe made Jackson appear to be “the victim,” he said.
