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Nancy Grace

Nancy Grace for April 27, 2005, CNNHN

Aired April 27, 2005 - 20:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


NANCY GRACE, HOST: Tonight, a bombshell in the Michael Jackson trial. Michael Jackson`s ex-wife, Debbie Rowe, on the stand. The mother of Jackson`s two children now demands they leave Neverland and come home to their mother. Debbie Rowe once supported the king of pop on the record. But now she supports the prosecution.
And today, the defense moves to have the Jackson child sex trial dismissed, thrown out of court. But the state says, "No way." They claim Jackson did a no-no in Neverland.

Good evening, everybody. I`m Nancy Grace. Thank you for being with us tonight.

Michael Jackson`s ex, Debbie Rowe, called by the state to the witness stand. Will Rowe blow the Jackson defense wide open?

Tonight, in Denver, defense attorney Lisa Wayne; in L.A., Jackson`s parents` lawyer, Debra Opri; in New York, psychotherapist Lauren Howard; in Atlanta, investigative journalist Art Harris.

But first, to Santa Maria, California, and CNN correspondent Ted Rowlands.

Hi, friend. Bring me up-to-date.

TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Nancy, Debbie Rowe did not take the stand until the very end of the court day. She was on the stand for about 40 minutes. And in that time, we did learn a lot.

As predicted, the prosecution was able to seemingly tie Michael Jackson to the other co-conspirators in this case for the first time. Debbie Rowe said that she had a phone conversation with Michael Jackson as they were preparing to produce this rebuttal video. And that Michael Jackson, in a two-and-a-half minute phone conversation, asked her to help him out, saying that there was, quote, "a bad video coming out."

Debbie Rowe said she did help out. Prosecutors said, "Why did you do this interview?" She said, quote, "Because I had promised that I would always be there for him and for the children."

It was unique -- this witness was very unique. And she came into the courtroom. She seemed a bit nervous, didn`t really look at Michael Jackson. But in the course of the examination of her, she made it known that she would still like to be reacquainted with Michael Jackson. She would like to be reacquainted with the children.

She said she hadn`t seen Jackson or the children since the divorce in 1999. And her voice quivered a little bit when the prosecutor said, "You would like to reconnect with Michael Jackson?" And she said, "Yes. He is my friend."

She said that she did the video on her own volition. She said that she was told by Jackson that she would be able to see him and the kids following the taping of the video and after everything, quote, "settled down a bit." She said that did not happen, but she said that she was not paid for the interview.

And she said that she did not know the questions. This was not a scripted interview. She said all of her answers came from her.

Then, late in the day, just before we were in recess, the prosecutor said, "Were you truthful during the entire interview that you did?" And she said, "No, I was not." And specifically she said she lied when she was talking about Michael Jackson`s good parenting skills, and that she had seen Michael Jackson around her kids and other kids and that she was not truthful during that video presentation.

Really a little bit for both sides here today. Jackson possibly connected to the co-conspirators, but Debbie Rowe clearly likes Michael Jackson, would like to be reacquainted with Michael Jackson, and calls him a friend -- Nancy?

GRACE: You know, Ted Rowlands, what`s so interesting to me is that I would say the operative word regarding Debbie Rowe`s testimony is regret, is pain. Apparently, she broke down or choked up every time she talked about her children, the fact that she had not seen them for so long.

And another thing, Ted, did it come out on the stand today that she was only allowed to see her kids like every 45 days for eight hours at a time, then it would be supervised with a nanny, and if Jackson was traveling with the kids, hey, visit`s off, and it would just roll over to the next 45 days?

ROWLANDS: Yes. And she said that, because of that, it was a sterile relationship with the children. And because of that -- you see Michael Jackson coming out of the courthouse right now waving enthusiastically to the small gathering the fans here that are in the rain in Santa Maria.

She said because of that custody agreement, where it was every 45 days for eight hours with a nanny there, that she agreed to basically terminate that and relinquish full custody of the children. She it just wasn`t a good relationship.

As you mentioned, if that 45-day period came up and Michael Jackson was in Europe or somewhere else around the world, she was just out of luck. She couldn`t just drop everything she was doing and fly to wherever he was for this eight-hour visit. So she said it really was not practical, and that is why she gave up her rights at that time.

GRACE: You know, Ted Rowlands, my understanding of the whole point of her testimony was that she would testify she had a very tightly scripted presentation on this rebuttal documentary, that she was told at the get-go by Jackson, "There`s this horrible video coming out. It`s full of lies. You have got to help me."

Didn`t she say today, Ted, there was no real list of questions, but the tape of her was only three hours and she was interviewed for nine hours?

ROWLANDS: Yes, but she was emphatic when asked, you know, were you told what to say or was there a script here? No, she said. There was some questions, and when they offered to let her see those questions, she said no.

So it was clearly misreported that Debbie Rowe was going to come up on the stand and say that she had the same experience as the accuser`s mother. The accuser`s mother, of course, said the whole thing was scripted in her case. Debbie Rowe said that is definitely not true.

And she was emphatic in her answers, meaning that she had heard the reports of what she was supposedly going to be saying and wanted to send a message that that was not accurate. She did say, though -- and this was another thing we expected from her -- that Michael Jackson himself called her about doing the video.

GRACE: You know, how does that tie in? What does that show to the jury that he himself was masterminding the rebuttal video?

ROWLANDS: Well, it is a stretch, obviously, but it`s the first time that Michael Jackson himself has been implicated as to having a tight relationship with these co-conspirators or any relationship, really, other than they were employees and the first time that any of this has come back to Michael Jackson, that he had any knowledge that there was any rebuttal video even being produced.

This was the first time that Jackson himself has been connected to it. That said, we got a lot of phone records put into evidence today. And I think that the prosecution will use phone records to try to tie Jackson into some of this, as well.

GRACE: Ted Rowlands, she wasn`t on the stand very long at all. She came on late in the day. I have got a feeling that this is the tip of the iceberg. What do you think?

ROWLANDS: Oh, clearly. Yes, 40 minutes into it is nothing. And I think that you`re right. We`re going to hear a lot more from Debbie Rowe. And we`ll get a lot more out of Debbie Rowe on cross examination, as well.

Mesereau did interject a lot and try to slow down the prosecution. Whether or not they look at her as a complete hostile witness, or maybe they believe that they can get something beneficial out of her. I would think that that would be the case, given her obvious admiration for Michael Jackson still the way she -- at times she broke down. It seems like she really loves Michael Jackson and wants to be reacquainted with him.

GRACE: Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. There are filings in child custody court, in family court, where she`s trying to take the kids away from Jackson. Now, should I believe her or my lying eyes?

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: I mean, which one is true? Does she want to be his friend or does she want to fight him for the kids?

ROWLANDS: Keep in mind who`s going to decide this, most likely an arbitrator or, you know, if both sides are going at each other in a custody battle and are nasty, and she doesn`t maybe stand a very good chance of coming out victorious. I think that an argument can be made that if Debbie Rowe and Michael Jackson get along, it will work out for Debbie Rowe and seeing her children. So that fight is very interesting.

What is really going on in that battle? Is it a battle? Or is it a negotiation process?

GRACE: But, Ted Rowlands, I agree with you. The reality is, though, she`s gotten along with him for all of these years since 1999. And she`s not seeing her kids.

So I get what you`re saying, that she`s acting friendly toward Jackson in court. She`s making eye contact. She says she wants to be his friend. On the other hand, she has filed a complaint trying to take the kids away from him in another courthouse.

Ted Rowlands, how is Jackson reacting when his ex-wife would break down on the stand?

ROWLANDS: He didn`t seem to be making eye contact with her much. And she actually looked down more than over to his direction. She wasn`t really establishing much eye contact with Jackson, either.

It was a very odd scenario in court, seeing the two of them together. Obviously, they both knew this was coming, but they haven`t seen each other in so long. And there wasn`t that one moment of the connection, which we`ve seen with a lot of these witnesses as they first get on the stand and look at Michael Jackson. That hasn`t happened. Maybe it will happen tomorrow.

GRACE: Wow. What about the jury, Ted?

ROWLANDS: They are mesmerized, taking notes feverishly, probably because they just sat through two-and-a-half, three hours of phone records. And this was a welcome change.

But obviously, this is a witness that has instant credibility. She was married to Michael Jackson. She`s the mother of two of his three children. So as you would expect, jurors were listening to every single word she had said.

GRACE: OK, Ted, before we go to break, break it to me. Are we going to find out, a, did they have the kids the old fashioned way through, you know what I mean, S-E-X, sex? Did Michael Jackson have sex with a woman, get her pregnant twice? Will we ever find that out?

ROWLANDS: I don`t think so. I think that that was addressed at the very beginning. "Are you the mother of two of Michael Jackson`s children?" The answer was yes. I don`t think it`s going to go any further than that, given this judge and what he said. He ruled that she could testify, but he also said the same, "I`m going to limit what she has to say," so I highly, highly doubt it.

GRACE: OK, Ted Rowlands is live at the courthouse. We are at Santa Maria, California, with all of the latest in the Michael Jackson trial. His ex-wife, Debbie Rowe, the mother of his two children, on the stand today for the state. Stay with us.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEBBIE ROWE, MICHAEL JACKSON`S EX-WIFE: My kids don`t call me mom because I don`t want them to. They are not -- they are Michael`s children. It`s not that they are not my children, but I had them because I wanted him to be a father. I believe that there are people who should be parents, and he`s one of them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROWE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Come on. How can that be weird? We`re having a kid. If anything, that`s beautiful, that`s wonderful, that`s great. Boy, was I wrong. I found out at one point a picture of me pregnant was worth half a million dollars.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Welcome back. I`m Nancy Grace. We are live in Santa Maria at the courthouse where Michael Jackson is being tried for child molestation.

On the stand today, heavy hitter for the prosecution, Debbie Rowe. But how will her testimony play out? She took the stand late in the day dressed elegantly in a dark suit. The jury hung on her every word.

Every time she was asked about her children, she broke down on the stand. Her testimony riddled with regret at having no relationship with her own children.

Let`s go straight to Art Harris, investigative reporter with "The Insider."

Why did Jackson and Rowe get married to start with? Why didn`t she just act as a surrogate mother?

ART HARRIS, "THE INSIDER": She was friends with him from the time she worked for his dermatologist, Nancy. She traveled the world with him, from 1993 -- she was actually at the ranch once when the `93 victim and his family came to visit.

She was friends. She decided to get married to him because he wanted kids. She cared for him. And so she agreed to do this, to be a surrogate mother.

She made a deal with him -- she could have actually gotten a lot more money, I`m told, but she agreed on, reportedly, a million dollars a year maxed out at $10 million. And that stopped, Nancy, when she apparently gave an interview to "Entertainment Tonight" earlier this year, and was accused of violating the confidentiality agreement.

So suddenly she`s back in court. She wants custody of kids she voluntarily gave up in a hearing in 2001 in Beverly Hills. I have got the document right here.

And it`s a good thing she says that Michael Jackson is a good father now, because that`s exactly what she said in court under oath in this hearing when she gave up permanent custody. The judge was very clear with her that, should she go through with this, there would be no take-backs. She couldn`t come back and say, "Look, I read something bad about Michael Jackson, that there is something horrible in the news. I want the kids back."

This was forever. And she`s saying now she wants it changed.

GRACE: And very quickly, Art Harris, what is that document you have got in your hand, that sworn testimony? What`s that?

HARRIS: This is her testimony under oath in court saying Michael is a wonderful man. This is her parental termination hearing.

GRACE: Ah, yes.

HARRIS: Brilliant father, it felt like an intrusion on their life for her to be around, she says. And she has asked that, "I`m absolutely around if Michael ever needs me. If the children needs me for a liver or kidney, hello, whatever, I`ll be around for him." But these are his kids.

GRACE: Let me quickly go to Anne Bremner standing by at the courthouse. She`s been in the courtroom all day long.

Anne Bremner, thank you for being with us. Anne is a high-profile lawyer out of Seattle. Anne, give me the lowdown from your point-of-view, Debbie Rowe on the stand.

ANNE BREMNER, TRIAL ATTORNEY: Nancy, she was like an unguided missile. She flip-flopped. I mean, it wasn`t just a backtrack. She flipped. No script, no coercion, no mentioning of visitation, nothing. The prosecutors were calling her for one main reason, and that was to say this is a scripted rebuttal, just like the scripting of the accuser`s mother.

And she said the opposite every chance she got. There were so many objections from Thomas Mesereau, when the prosecutor tried to lead her, or tried to get her to say something to be helpful, and they were sustained, sustained, sustained. It was courtroom drama at its finest, or at its worst.

GRACE: Oh, my stars.

Debra Opri, a lawyer`s worst nightmare. You have to object during your own direct examination of your witness.

DEBRA OPRI, JACKSON FAMILY ATTORNEY: Let me tell you something, Nancy. We better understand that Debbie Rowe is going to be taken in total after her testimony is finished. It`s not a good idea for anyone to judge her testimony after 40 minutes.

Let us remember two things. Number one, she voluntarily abandoned her children in return for payment. Number two, there is a strong public policy in the family law courts for both parents to do parenting.

So for her to have made a motion that she wanted her parental rights reinstated, it would have been absent any evidence of her having a detrimental effect on the kids. It was a slam dunk she wasn`t going to get those parental rights reinstated.

So let`s just see what it is. And Debbie Rowe on the stand, wait until Mesereau gets her tomorrow. I hope to be there.

GRACE: Lauren Howard, question to you. A lot of people are being really hard on Debbie Rowe tonight. What was her motivation?

LAUREN HOWARD, PSYCHOTHERAPIST: We have to be hard on Debbie Rowe. I mean, what Anne Bremner said is exactly right. She completely flip- flopped. She`s totally disingenuous. She`s totally opportunistic. Why did she marry and have these children? To serve herself.

GRACE: Well, why did Jackson pay her to have his children?

HOWARD: Because he wanted children.

GRACE: So why is she the bad person?

HOWARD: She`s not the bad person. She`s just an opportunistic person. You know, she makes a statement on the stand that she would stick by Michael and the kids no matter what. No, she will stick by herself no matter what.

GRACE: Quick break. We are live in Santa Maria, California, with all of the latest in the Michael Jackson trial. Will Debbie Rowe being the nail in the coffin for Michael Jackson?

Let`s go to "Trial Tracking": Georgia officials say the parents of Jonah and Nicole Payne, the toddlers found dead in a sewage pond on Monday, have been under the watch of the Georgia Department of Family and Children Services nearly two years. DFCS began watching the Paynes in 2003. They concluded 2-year-old Nicole, 3-year-old Jonah were neglected.

The case was closed this February, reopened a month later. Officials say they were in the Payne home just last week. Nicole and Jonah`s autopsies so far reveal no signs of trauma, but their deaths are still under investigation.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROWE: And I said, "So be a dad." He looked at me puzzled. And I said, "Let me do this. I want to do this. You have been so good to me. You are such a great friend. Please let me do this."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: I guess we`ll never know if Debbie Rowe wanted to do this, that is have sex with Jackson to have children, or get artificially inseminated. That question will likely never be asked in that Santa Maria`s California courthouse.

Straight out to Anne Bremner standing by. Anne, did anybody even touch on this?

BREMNER: Yes. I mean, the question was, after everything failed with the prosecution in terms of trying to hit a mark on this -- you know, trying to show that this was a scripted tape. Then she says, you know, and she talks about good feelings about Michael, wanting to reconcile with the children, you know, et cetera, happy future, he`s my friend.

"Did you lie during the tape?" He finally asked that. And then, well, the answer is yes, about the conception of the children. But we still -- it`s kind of out there. We don`t know what the lie is about. Did they have them the old-fashioned way or was she a surrogate?

GRACE: That`s what I don`t understand, why, Lisa Wayne, she didn`t agree just to be a surrogate and avoid all this masquerading as a family, as a husband, as a wife. What do you say, Lisa?

LISA WAYNE, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: You know, Nancy, all I keep thinking about is something my grandmother use to say, and that is Debbie Rowe is as phony as a $2 bill. You can`t believe anything she says.

GRACE: Wait, who said that?

WAYNE: My grandmother used to say that. I mean...

GRACE: She should be a trial analyst. Can she come on the show tomorrow night? Because listen, if she is as fake as a $2 bill, what is Michael Jackson? He`s the one that hired her and has pretended he`s been sleeping with her. Hello? And that these children were made the old- fashioned way.

WAYNE: But that`s not what the case is about. But, Nancy, what you are talking about is character evidence. And that`s why -- I have to tell you, I think this is going to be a scary witness for the prosecution tomorrow, because this is a mistrial waiting to happen.

Because if they open the door to that character stuff -- and I don`t disagree with you, Nancy. Everybody is dying to know whether or not Michael Jackson is a sexual deviant. Does he sleep with women? Does he like woman?

But that`s not the issue in the case. And I think that the prosecutor is taking some real chances by asking this woman to really vouch for the credibility of their case and to open the door to things that he knows can`t come out with this judge`s ruling.

GRACE: Now, hold on. Lisa, you are saying that, by asking her, "Did you lie in your earlier statements?" And it was all about custody, her earlier statements. But she said the children were born and conceived the old-fashioned way, if she said, "No, I didn`t lie about that," then where are we left?

WAYNE: Well, I think that opens the door up, because the inference that the prosecution wants to make is that, obviously, there is no sex. This is a guy who doesn`t sleep with women.

GRACE: Right. I got you.

WAYNE: And so, I think, you know, you have got to reign that in. And it`s just a familiar theme with the prosecution`s witnesses.

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: Well, I mean, that`s their whole point, Lisa.

But let me go to Jane Velez-Mitchell. She`s joining us. She`s just come out of the courtroom.

Jane Velez-Mitchell, the whole point is for the prosecution that he got sexual gratification from children. Bring me up-to-date from your vantage point in the courtroom, Jane.

JANE VELEZ-MITCHELL, "CELEBRITY JUSTICE": Well, this was absolutely a roller coaster of an afternoon. Forty minutes she`s on the stand and she completely rocked this trial.

Debbie Rowe, of course, was expected to say that the rebuttal interview she gave was highly scripted and she said the exact opposite, that they handed her a list of questions and she said no thanks because she didn`t want anyone to be able to accuse her of being rehearsed down the line.

And she said, as Michael Jackson knows, nobody can tell me what to say. I speak my own mind. But then, of course, she went on to say that she did, in fact, speak untruths and specifically about Michael Jackson`s parenting skills.

I think the jury is still out on this particular witness. Tomorrow, she could come back and say she told a string of lies about Michael Jackson. I don`t know how that helps the conspiracy case but it certainly might make Michael Jackson look very bad.

GRACE: Well, like Lisa Wayne, I have a grandmother that had quite a bit to say, too. And I can tell you this about that. The camel`s nose is in the tent. The tail will surely follow, tomorrow when Debbie Rowe gets back on the witness stand.

We have got an all-star panel lined up to break it down for you and put it back together again. We are live at the Michael Jackson child molestation trial.

As you know, we here at NANCY GRACE want desperately to help solve unsolved homicides, help find missing people. Tonight, take a look at Reuben Blackwell, 12-years-old from Clinton, Maryland. What a little angel. Ruben disappeared May 1996.

If you have any information on this little boy, Rueben Blackwell, please call the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, 1-800- THE-LOST.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWS BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JERMAINE JACKSON, BROTHER OF MICHAEL JACKSON: We all saw on the Bashir special that there was nothing done. The kid stated and his mother stated that Michael was kind to them. And you tell me, how can someone be held against their will at Neverland? Is it that people doesn`t want to leave there because of the joy and the fun? And it is just, Larry, I`m very disappointed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: That`s the brother of Michael Jackson speaking out in Jackson`s defense.

Welcome back. I`m Nancy Grace. Let`s go straight back to the courthouse.

Standing by, Anne Bremner and Jane Velez-Mitchell.

Jane, I understand that the jury was literally on the edge of their seats. Now, that could have had something to do with the fact that all morning they were hearing about phone records and then suddenly in comes Debbie Rowe. Were they that riveted to Rowe? I understand there was electricity.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: They were riveted. You could see the entire jury pool like this, the entire jury box. They were all turned that way. I have never seen that before, leaning forward like this.

This woman clearly captured their imagination. And it certainly obvious why. Here is a woman who has such a complex relationship with this man. It seemed pretty clear to me she still has feelings for him. Remember, way back in the `80s, when she was his nurse, when she worked for his dermatologist, she was obsessed reportedly with Michael Jackson. Her room was plastered with Michael Jackson posters.

She went on to marry him, had kids, then get into a bitter custody dispute. But underneath all that, when she broke up, when the prosecutor asked, why did you want to get reacquainted with him, she said, because he`s my friend. And she broke up. She`s always said theirs was not so much a sexual love, as a love on another level. And I really think that she still has feelings for him.

GRACE: Love on another level. When did she say that?

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, she has said that in published reports, that their love was sort of a different variety, almost -- you get the sense of a platonic love that two people can have that is of a different variety than your regular boyfriend-girlfriend, husband-and-wife kind of love.

And I think that that was the unknown element that perhaps prosecutors didn`t count on that sort of just reared its head at this moment.

GRACE: OK, hold on. Hold on. They were man and wife, according to both of them.

Anne Bremner, I smell a rat. A different kind of love? A special love. A platonic love. OK. Let`s get down to, Anne Bremner, the state is trying to prove child molestation on boys by Jackson. His wife says they had a friendship love, brother-sister love.

BREMNER: That`s right.

GRACE: To me, that helps the state.

BREMNER: Did it what, Nancy?

GRACE: It helps the state.

BREMNER: Oh, yes, yes, absolutely.

I mean, you know, if Michael Jackson had real marriages with Lisa Marie Presley and with Debbie Rowe, it would be a different ball game. But she`s talking about this different kind of love, some groovy kind of love that isn`t husband and wife kind of love. And we don`t know what she is going to say about his parenting skills or about the parentage of these children.

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: It is more the artificial insemination kind of love, I think is what she`s trying to say, Anne Bremner.

BREMNER: That`s exactly right.

GRACE: Let`s put it out there.

(CROSSTALK)

BREMNER: You`re right, Nancy.

GRACE: I mean, we have got to call a pig a pig here. We have to call it like it is.

Jane Velez-Mitchell, did the jury get the drift that she basically has said in the past that she and Jackson were just friends?

VELEZ-MITCHELL: What I am trying to explain is her motivation for being so anticlimactic on the stand. The prosecution promised she would deliver this bombshell and she didn`t.

I believe, at one point, I think I saw her go over and kind of smile at Jackson. What I`m trying to say is, her motivations for how she behaved on the stand today are very, very complex. And I think there was something that was kind of an undertow, that was kind of motivating her either on a conscious or an unconscious level to help Jackson out, even though she is his purported enemy. Am I making myself clear?

GRACE: Yes, perfect sense.

Art Harris has been covering this case for years. Art Harris, do you feel in any way that Debbie Rowe has been manipulated? She has obviously been a huge Jackson fan her whole life. He agrees to have children with her. How, I don`t know. But they have the two kids. That`s the bottom line. And now she`s in court. Still, it seems as though Jackson is pulling the strengths on Debbie Rowe.

HARRIS: It seems like she`s trying to win this one with honey, instead of vinegar, Nancy, maybe feeling that it will be easier to get custody down the line if she is more conciliatory here.

Now, what is fascinating though, is, let`s take a look at how connected she is. I can tell you, she has seen him naked as his nurse. It is in this police affidavit that I have from 1993.

GRACE: I notice you said as his nurse and not as his wife. That`s not lost on me, Art Harris. But go ahead.

HARRIS: I don`t have evidence of that.

But do I have the interview here that detectives did with her and her doctor. She traveled with him around the world, gave him injections for acne and other things and befriended him.

GRACE: Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait. What other things would somebody being -- get injections?

HARRIS: Well, she was treating him for vitiligo. This was the blotches on the skin, which raises another thing that police say she has in common with the `93 victim, that he also saw Jackson naked and could identify and specifically point out what these blotches were.

If for some reason he changes his mind and shows up to testify, those photographs taken back then from the search warrant could come in of his body. Debbie Rowe might be asked to say, were those blotches there when you knew him in the `90s? I mean, it is a wild turn, Nancy. But she is now in the unenviable position of having to testify against somebody who is really her sugar daddy.

GRACE: Well, really, she has got to testify against someone that has control of her children.

Now, very quickly to Jane Velez-Mitchell.

Is it true, Jane, that the prosecution with its own witness, Debbie Rowe, on the stand basically had to eject while their own witness was on the stand?

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, you know, so much was going on. I was so focused on watching her and trying to understand her behavior. I really didn`t get a sense. They put on a good show, the prosecution. They didn`t sort of keel over and go, oh, my gosh, she`s not saying what we expect her to say.

So, I think they were trying to sort of act as if and put on a good face for the jury, because those of us who were sitting there watching this in the media were like, whoa, she`s not saying what they promised. Ron Zonen, the deputy DA, said she would say that this was highly scripted. She would say her kids were used as pawns.

What she said was, she had expectations of getting reacquainted with her kids and getting reacquainted with Michael Jackson. And that`s when she broke down and said because he`s my friend and started crying. I mean, how do you deal with that when you`re the prosecutor?

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: To Lauren Howard.

Lauren, on the stand today, Debbie Rowe. And said that she believed that, if she did the video to help Michael Jackson repair his reputation, she could see her children.

HOWARD: But she didn`t want to see her children. She doesn`t want her children. She gave her children up voluntarily.

GRACE: Then why do the video in order to see the children if she didn`t want to see the children? That is what she said.

HOWARD: Because seeing the children, having contact with the children, having the children under her aegis, gives her money. At the end of the day, it gives her money. It gives her presence with Michael Jackson, who she is clearly obsessed with. You want to call it a groovy kind of love, that`s fine. I call it something else.

GRACE: Is that the way she came across, Anne Bremner?

BREMNER: You know what? The way -- yes, she came across in ways that were just confounding. But it was almost like she was in this fugue state in terms of kind of a love for Michael Jackson, whatever it was, that somehow she turned.

And the question is, why has she turned? Because we know she told the prosecutors these things. They wouldn`t have represented those things to the court unless they had a good-faith basis to say it. And she didn`t say those things today. She smiled at him. She was very amorphous about wanting to see the children again in her motives in doing this video. Was she threatened? Does she love him?

GRACE: OK. At the courthouse, Jane Velez-Mitchell. Also with us there, Anne Bremner.

Debbie Rowe, Jackson`s ex-wife, on the stand. We haven`t even told you about the defense asking for a mistrial, trying to get the charges thrown out today.

We`ll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEBBIE ROWE, EX-WIFE OF MICHAEL JACKSON: We are a family unit. Michael and I will always be connected with the kids. I`ll always be there for him. I will always be there for the children. And people make remarks oh, I can`t believe she left her children. Left them? I left my children? I did not leave my children. My children are with their father, where they are supposed to be.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Elizabeth (ph), what happened to the music? Oh, that was the mood music for the background. Oh, I get it now.

Anne Bremner, did the jury see the mood music and the fire and the comfy sofa and Debbie Rowe talking about her connectedness to the family unit, the one she hasn`t seen since 1999? Hello.

BREMNER: Yes. Well, they`re going to see all of it, Nancy. You know, there was nine hours of taping. She came down to, I think, three. And the mood music is there. It is just kind of whack-a-doodle.

GRACE: I understand that is a legal technical in your jurisdiction of Seattle.

(LAUGHTER)

BREMNER: It is.

GRACE: Let me go to Jane Velez-Mitchell.

Whack-a-doodle, would that basically sum up what happened in the last 40 minutes of court today?

VELEZ-MITCHELL: I`m telling you, my head is spinning. This is such a wild day. It`s such a wild trial. And the pattern that I`m seeing really gets down to celebrity justice. That happens to be the name of the show I work for, but it is also really what is at work here.

GRACE: Shameless plug. Shameless plug.

(CROSSTALK)

(LAUGHTER)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Thank you.

But there`s a point here. Michael Jackson is a superstar with charisma. All these people who are supposed to be his enemies get up there on the witness stand, speaking for the prosecution, and they proceed to smile at Michael Jackson. Hamid Moslehi, his former videographer, who is suing Michael Jackson for unpaid invoices, smiled at Michael Jackson.

There is sort of this draw that he has. Even people who are supposedly his enemy seem to be drawn in by his charisma. And it is the factor that the prosecution seems to be so confounded by. They expect people to get up and behave a certain way.

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: And they don`t because they see Michael Jackson.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: And they don`t because they are staring at Michael Jackson. Yes.

Let me go to Lisa Wayne, defense attorney.

Lisa, for a moment, defense attorney hat off, my prosecution hat off. I have had a witness on the stand many times. We have gone over and over the testimony. They know what the questions are. They know where we`re going. No surprises. They get on the stand and somehow they melt. They give you the opposite answers of what they had just said out in the hall in a preinterview.

And you just look at them. What can you do? You can`t say, hey, you are lying. The jury is watching. The judge is watching. What can you do? The state is stuck between a rock and a hard spot.

(CROSSTALK)

WAYNE: It is. And that is always the part for the lawyer where we have that out-of-body experience and go, whoa. Wait a minute. We weren`t prepared.

GRACE: Ruh-roh.

WAYNE: But, if, in fact -- the bottom line for me on this case is that a prosecutor made an opening statement with the anticipation of evidence they sure should have thought they had. You just don`t do that. You don`t overstep your boundaries, because you lose credibility, Nancy.

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: Anne Bremner, so did Tom Mesereau. Remember, we already have gotten him in four or five...

WAYNE: And that`s a problem.

GRACE: Anne Bremner, promises in opening that have been totally disproved in the state`s case. So, they have both done it.

BREMNER: That`s a problem. And you know what? That`s a fundamental mistake by lawyers.

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: Go ahead, Anne.

BREMNER: Well, yes.

With Mesereau, he basically said that three comedians would say the opposite of what they said, that mother was after money and that she went to these various people trying to get money under false pretenses and use it for herself. Not one of them came through saying what he said they would say.

GRACE: Yes.

BREMNER: They said the opposite.

GRACE: And they were very reliable witnesses, George Lopez.

BREMNER: They were excellent, excellent witnesses.

GRACE: Another female comedian, Jamie Masada.

To Lauren Howard here in the studio with me, psychotherapist.

This whole theory that Jane Velez-Mitchell from "Celebrity Justice," Jane, and Anne Bremner are telling us about, how this woman just kind of melted like a little ice cube when she saw Michael Jackson, in all of his regalia, sitting there. It all goes back to obsession.

HOWARD: It is all obsession.

And you look at the fans outside. I mean, you have a man who dangled an infant baby off a balcony and everyone is just sort of sitting around and saying, what a great guy? You have got these fans who are absolutely obsessed.

GRACE: Ouch. Oh.

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: Wait. No, no. Take a look. There is Blanket. That`s the child`s name.

HOWARD: Excuse me.

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: He`s up on a balcony. Let`s see. What was it, Ellie (ph)? What floor is he on? The 16th, the 20th floor? Yes. She is saying yes. And the baby was kicking for its life.

HOWARD: And yet you have this mass of people who are coming out in droves in support of this man and the way he handles children, his behavior with children.

He`s incredibly seductive. He is, you know, what we call a kinder, gentler child molester, because he`s not violent. He`s sweet and loving.

GRACE: I`ve never used those exact words.

HOWARD: And loving. That is exactly right. And I hope you never do.

But this is a seducer. This is a Svengali. And Debbie Rowe is in his throes. And so are all the other people surrounding him.

GRACE: You know, back to Art Harris, investigative reporter with "The Insider."

Art has the actual document under-oath testimony by Rowe when she was giving up her parental rights. That was in, what, 2002?

HARRIS: Two thousand one, Nancy.

GRACE: Now, Art Harris, the reality is, if she has got all that on the record under oath, what can she possibly say now? She`s stuck with her 2001 testimony.

HARRIS: Well, think about it. If she had come out slamming Michael Jackson, Mesereau could have come back and waved this in her face and saying, but you said here he was a wonderful father and you wanted to give him these kids and you find nothing wrong and you can`t imagine that, even if he dies, he must have somebody else designated to take care of the kids. You don`t want them then. You want his choice.

GRACE: Ouch.

HARRIS: Yes. It is all under oath.

GRACE: Man. Man. Oh, Manishevitz.

Jane Velez-Mitchell, all the defense has to do is go down to Kinko`s and blow that up on a big poster board and say, even if Jackson dies, I don`t want kids. That`s what she said, right, Art Harris?

HARRIS: It`s in here.

"Have you ever considered the possibility, if Michael should die, what will happen to the children?"

"I`m sure he has a wonderful person in mind to take care of them."

"You understand you will not have a right to take care of the children?"

"I don`t want to. And not that I don`t love them. No, I do. I think they are adorable. They are his kids. They are not my kids. They`re not my kids."

That`s what she said.

GRACE: Let me go straight back to Jane Velez-Mitchell.

Jane, what do you expect tomorrow?

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, tomorrow could be a better day for the prosecution, if she goes into a litany of lies that she said she told on this rebuttal tape.

But I think the bigger issue is a couple things that you have mentioned. One, everybody who has taken the stand seems to have so many depositions and statements that they made so many times that Tom Mesereau, the defense attorney, has boxes and boxes and boxes of things to impeach them with. So it`s so hard. These are not fresh people. These are people who have been interviewed gazillions of times, it feels like.

And they are easily impeachable for that witness -- that reason. Who remains absolutely consistent about anything over the years? The second point I think that is really, really the heart of this whole thing is, this is a woman that gave away two of her children. People who say it is just about money I don`t think really understand psychology. You have to really be in somebody`s thrall, much deeper than wanting money, to give away your flesh and blood.

And the fact that she was able to do that many years ago means that she`s perfectly capable of getting up here on the stand and not giving the prosecution what they want, because she`s in his thrall. She gave her kids to them. Do you know what that takes psychologically, how much power somebody has to has over you in order to get you to give them your flesh and blood? I mean, think about it.

GRACE: And, of course, now in the courtroom, she`s about, what, 20 feet away from him?

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes.

GRACE: OK. All right. No wonder she melted like an ice cube.

Quick break, everybody. We`ll be right back.

Let`s go to tonight`s all-points bulletin.

The FBI and law enforcement authorities are on the lookout for this man, Russell Earl Winstead, wanted for stabbing his 86-year-old aunt to death after she refused to give him money. The crime happened January 12, 2003, Kentucky. Winstead, 40 years old, 6`1``, 180 pounds, black hair, brown eyes. Take a look, the FBI offering up to $10,000 for any information leading to Winstead`s arrest.

If you have information, call the FBI, 202-324-3000.

Local news for some of you, but we`ll be right back. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRACE: Welcome back, everybody. I`m Nancy Grace. We`re live in Santa Maria, California, and the latest in the Michael Jackson child sex trial.

Straight back to Jane Velez-Mitchell.

There was a motion today by the defense for a mistrial, to have the case thrown out. What happened and how did the judge rule?

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, basically, the judge listened to arguments from both sides and said mistrial, not. And he has done this several times.

There have been up to, I`d say, four or five requests for a mistrial from the defense. In this case, they were upset that one of the deputy DAs talked about sleeping with boys in a question to a witness after the judge had specifically reminded everybody that that kind of questioning is out of line. So, they said that that was highly prejudicial and stuck in the jury`s minds.

GRACE: OK.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: And the judge said no. But they do this all the time. They ask for mistrials constantly.

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: Yes. Yes.

Anne Bremner, I understood that the personal videographer, Hamid Moslehi, on the stand, the prosecution asked about the outtakes, essentially, suggesting that there was more information about Jackson sleeping with boys in the outtakes.

BREMNER: Right.

GRACE: And that caused a motion for a mistrial, correct?

BREMNER: Yes. Yes. That`s right. And, of course, it was denied, but there`s been a number of these motions made. And that is correct, Nancy.

GRACE: OK.

So, Anne Bremner, you are a trial lawyer. What do you think the prosecution is doing with Jackson`s ex tonight?

BREMNER: Woodshedding? I mean, crying? I don`t know.

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: Well, I can tell you this much. They are probably taking her to school and schooling her on the questions for tomorrow.

BREMNER: They are taking her to school.

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: The bottom line, if they try to coach her, if they try to coach her, that will be question one on cross-examination.

BREMNER: You bet. You bet.

GRACE: I want to thank all of my fantastic guests tonight, Jane Velez-Mitchell, Art Harris, Anne Bremner, here in the studio with me, psychotherapist Lauren Howard, Debra Opri with us earlier, the Jackson family lawyer.

But, as always, my biggest thank you is to you for being with us tonight, inviting all of us into your home.

Coming up, headlines from around the world.

Remember, Court TV live coverage of the Jackson trial tomorrow, 3:00 to 5:00 Eastern.

I`m Nancy Grace, signing off for tonight. Hope to see you right here tomorrow night, 8:00 sharp Eastern.

And, until then, good night, friend.

END


Aired April 27, 2005 - 20:00:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
NANCY GRACE, HOST: Tonight, a bombshell in the Michael Jackson trial. Michael Jackson`s ex-wife, Debbie Rowe, on the stand. The mother of Jackson`s two children now demands they leave Neverland and come home to their mother. Debbie Rowe once supported the king of pop on the record. But now she supports the prosecution.
And today, the defense moves to have the Jackson child sex trial dismissed, thrown out of court. But the state says, "No way." They claim Jackson did a no-no in Neverland.

Good evening, everybody. I`m Nancy Grace. Thank you for being with us tonight.

Michael Jackson`s ex, Debbie Rowe, called by the state to the witness stand. Will Rowe blow the Jackson defense wide open?

Tonight, in Denver, defense attorney Lisa Wayne; in L.A., Jackson`s parents` lawyer, Debra Opri; in New York, psychotherapist Lauren Howard; in Atlanta, investigative journalist Art Harris.

But first, to Santa Maria, California, and CNN correspondent Ted Rowlands.

Hi, friend. Bring me up-to-date.

TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Nancy, Debbie Rowe did not take the stand until the very end of the court day. She was on the stand for about 40 minutes. And in that time, we did learn a lot.

As predicted, the prosecution was able to seemingly tie Michael Jackson to the other co-conspirators in this case for the first time. Debbie Rowe said that she had a phone conversation with Michael Jackson as they were preparing to produce this rebuttal video. And that Michael Jackson, in a two-and-a-half minute phone conversation, asked her to help him out, saying that there was, quote, "a bad video coming out."

Debbie Rowe said she did help out. Prosecutors said, "Why did you do this interview?" She said, quote, "Because I had promised that I would always be there for him and for the children."

It was unique -- this witness was very unique. And she came into the courtroom. She seemed a bit nervous, didn`t really look at Michael Jackson. But in the course of the examination of her, she made it known that she would still like to be reacquainted with Michael Jackson. She would like to be reacquainted with the children.

She said she hadn`t seen Jackson or the children since the divorce in 1999. And her voice quivered a little bit when the prosecutor said, "You would like to reconnect with Michael Jackson?" And she said, "Yes. He is my friend."

She said that she did the video on her own volition. She said that she was told by Jackson that she would be able to see him and the kids following the taping of the video and after everything, quote, "settled down a bit." She said that did not happen, but she said that she was not paid for the interview.

And she said that she did not know the questions. This was not a scripted interview. She said all of her answers came from her.

Then, late in the day, just before we were in recess, the prosecutor said, "Were you truthful during the entire interview that you did?" And she said, "No, I was not." And specifically she said she lied when she was talking about Michael Jackson`s good parenting skills, and that she had seen Michael Jackson around her kids and other kids and that she was not truthful during that video presentation.

Really a little bit for both sides here today. Jackson possibly connected to the co-conspirators, but Debbie Rowe clearly likes Michael Jackson, would like to be reacquainted with Michael Jackson, and calls him a friend -- Nancy?

GRACE: You know, Ted Rowlands, what`s so interesting to me is that I would say the operative word regarding Debbie Rowe`s testimony is regret, is pain. Apparently, she broke down or choked up every time she talked about her children, the fact that she had not seen them for so long.

And another thing, Ted, did it come out on the stand today that she was only allowed to see her kids like every 45 days for eight hours at a time, then it would be supervised with a nanny, and if Jackson was traveling with the kids, hey, visit`s off, and it would just roll over to the next 45 days?

ROWLANDS: Yes. And she said that, because of that, it was a sterile relationship with the children. And because of that -- you see Michael Jackson coming out of the courthouse right now waving enthusiastically to the small gathering the fans here that are in the rain in Santa Maria.

She said because of that custody agreement, where it was every 45 days for eight hours with a nanny there, that she agreed to basically terminate that and relinquish full custody of the children. She it just wasn`t a good relationship.

As you mentioned, if that 45-day period came up and Michael Jackson was in Europe or somewhere else around the world, she was just out of luck. She couldn`t just drop everything she was doing and fly to wherever he was for this eight-hour visit. So she said it really was not practical, and that is why she gave up her rights at that time.

GRACE: You know, Ted Rowlands, my understanding of the whole point of her testimony was that she would testify she had a very tightly scripted presentation on this rebuttal documentary, that she was told at the get-go by Jackson, "There`s this horrible video coming out. It`s full of lies. You have got to help me."

Didn`t she say today, Ted, there was no real list of questions, but the tape of her was only three hours and she was interviewed for nine hours?

ROWLANDS: Yes, but she was emphatic when asked, you know, were you told what to say or was there a script here? No, she said. There was some questions, and when they offered to let her see those questions, she said no.

So it was clearly misreported that Debbie Rowe was going to come up on the stand and say that she had the same experience as the accuser`s mother. The accuser`s mother, of course, said the whole thing was scripted in her case. Debbie Rowe said that is definitely not true.

And she was emphatic in her answers, meaning that she had heard the reports of what she was supposedly going to be saying and wanted to send a message that that was not accurate. She did say, though -- and this was another thing we expected from her -- that Michael Jackson himself called her about doing the video.

GRACE: You know, how does that tie in? What does that show to the jury that he himself was masterminding the rebuttal video?

ROWLANDS: Well, it is a stretch, obviously, but it`s the first time that Michael Jackson himself has been implicated as to having a tight relationship with these co-conspirators or any relationship, really, other than they were employees and the first time that any of this has come back to Michael Jackson, that he had any knowledge that there was any rebuttal video even being produced.

This was the first time that Jackson himself has been connected to it. That said, we got a lot of phone records put into evidence today. And I think that the prosecution will use phone records to try to tie Jackson into some of this, as well.

GRACE: Ted Rowlands, she wasn`t on the stand very long at all. She came on late in the day. I have got a feeling that this is the tip of the iceberg. What do you think?

ROWLANDS: Oh, clearly. Yes, 40 minutes into it is nothing. And I think that you`re right. We`re going to hear a lot more from Debbie Rowe. And we`ll get a lot more out of Debbie Rowe on cross examination, as well.

Mesereau did interject a lot and try to slow down the prosecution. Whether or not they look at her as a complete hostile witness, or maybe they believe that they can get something beneficial out of her. I would think that that would be the case, given her obvious admiration for Michael Jackson still the way she -- at times she broke down. It seems like she really loves Michael Jackson and wants to be reacquainted with him.

GRACE: Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. There are filings in child custody court, in family court, where she`s trying to take the kids away from Jackson. Now, should I believe her or my lying eyes?

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: I mean, which one is true? Does she want to be his friend or does she want to fight him for the kids?

ROWLANDS: Keep in mind who`s going to decide this, most likely an arbitrator or, you know, if both sides are going at each other in a custody battle and are nasty, and she doesn`t maybe stand a very good chance of coming out victorious. I think that an argument can be made that if Debbie Rowe and Michael Jackson get along, it will work out for Debbie Rowe and seeing her children. So that fight is very interesting.

What is really going on in that battle? Is it a battle? Or is it a negotiation process?

GRACE: But, Ted Rowlands, I agree with you. The reality is, though, she`s gotten along with him for all of these years since 1999. And she`s not seeing her kids.

So I get what you`re saying, that she`s acting friendly toward Jackson in court. She`s making eye contact. She says she wants to be his friend. On the other hand, she has filed a complaint trying to take the kids away from him in another courthouse.

Ted Rowlands, how is Jackson reacting when his ex-wife would break down on the stand?

ROWLANDS: He didn`t seem to be making eye contact with her much. And she actually looked down more than over to his direction. She wasn`t really establishing much eye contact with Jackson, either.

It was a very odd scenario in court, seeing the two of them together. Obviously, they both knew this was coming, but they haven`t seen each other in so long. And there wasn`t that one moment of the connection, which we`ve seen with a lot of these witnesses as they first get on the stand and look at Michael Jackson. That hasn`t happened. Maybe it will happen tomorrow.

GRACE: Wow. What about the jury, Ted?

ROWLANDS: They are mesmerized, taking notes feverishly, probably because they just sat through two-and-a-half, three hours of phone records. And this was a welcome change.

But obviously, this is a witness that has instant credibility. She was married to Michael Jackson. She`s the mother of two of his three children. So as you would expect, jurors were listening to every single word she had said.

GRACE: OK, Ted, before we go to break, break it to me. Are we going to find out, a, did they have the kids the old fashioned way through, you know what I mean, S-E-X, sex? Did Michael Jackson have sex with a woman, get her pregnant twice? Will we ever find that out?

ROWLANDS: I don`t think so. I think that that was addressed at the very beginning. "Are you the mother of two of Michael Jackson`s children?" The answer was yes. I don`t think it`s going to go any further than that, given this judge and what he said. He ruled that she could testify, but he also said the same, "I`m going to limit what she has to say," so I highly, highly doubt it.

GRACE: OK, Ted Rowlands is live at the courthouse. We are at Santa Maria, California, with all of the latest in the Michael Jackson trial. His ex-wife, Debbie Rowe, the mother of his two children, on the stand today for the state. Stay with us.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEBBIE ROWE, MICHAEL JACKSON`S EX-WIFE: My kids don`t call me mom because I don`t want them to. They are not -- they are Michael`s children. It`s not that they are not my children, but I had them because I wanted him to be a father. I believe that there are people who should be parents, and he`s one of them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROWE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Come on. How can that be weird? We`re having a kid. If anything, that`s beautiful, that`s wonderful, that`s great. Boy, was I wrong. I found out at one point a picture of me pregnant was worth half a million dollars.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Welcome back. I`m Nancy Grace. We are live in Santa Maria at the courthouse where Michael Jackson is being tried for child molestation.

On the stand today, heavy hitter for the prosecution, Debbie Rowe. But how will her testimony play out? She took the stand late in the day dressed elegantly in a dark suit. The jury hung on her every word.

Every time she was asked about her children, she broke down on the stand. Her testimony riddled with regret at having no relationship with her own children.

Let`s go straight to Art Harris, investigative reporter with "The Insider."

Why did Jackson and Rowe get married to start with? Why didn`t she just act as a surrogate mother?

ART HARRIS, "THE INSIDER": She was friends with him from the time she worked for his dermatologist, Nancy. She traveled the world with him, from 1993 -- she was actually at the ranch once when the `93 victim and his family came to visit.

She was friends. She decided to get married to him because he wanted kids. She cared for him. And so she agreed to do this, to be a surrogate mother.

She made a deal with him -- she could have actually gotten a lot more money, I`m told, but she agreed on, reportedly, a million dollars a year maxed out at $10 million. And that stopped, Nancy, when she apparently gave an interview to "Entertainment Tonight" earlier this year, and was accused of violating the confidentiality agreement.

So suddenly she`s back in court. She wants custody of kids she voluntarily gave up in a hearing in 2001 in Beverly Hills. I have got the document right here.

And it`s a good thing she says that Michael Jackson is a good father now, because that`s exactly what she said in court under oath in this hearing when she gave up permanent custody. The judge was very clear with her that, should she go through with this, there would be no take-backs. She couldn`t come back and say, "Look, I read something bad about Michael Jackson, that there is something horrible in the news. I want the kids back."

This was forever. And she`s saying now she wants it changed.

GRACE: And very quickly, Art Harris, what is that document you have got in your hand, that sworn testimony? What`s that?

HARRIS: This is her testimony under oath in court saying Michael is a wonderful man. This is her parental termination hearing.

GRACE: Ah, yes.

HARRIS: Brilliant father, it felt like an intrusion on their life for her to be around, she says. And she has asked that, "I`m absolutely around if Michael ever needs me. If the children needs me for a liver or kidney, hello, whatever, I`ll be around for him." But these are his kids.

GRACE: Let me quickly go to Anne Bremner standing by at the courthouse. She`s been in the courtroom all day long.

Anne Bremner, thank you for being with us. Anne is a high-profile lawyer out of Seattle. Anne, give me the lowdown from your point-of-view, Debbie Rowe on the stand.

ANNE BREMNER, TRIAL ATTORNEY: Nancy, she was like an unguided missile. She flip-flopped. I mean, it wasn`t just a backtrack. She flipped. No script, no coercion, no mentioning of visitation, nothing. The prosecutors were calling her for one main reason, and that was to say this is a scripted rebuttal, just like the scripting of the accuser`s mother.

And she said the opposite every chance she got. There were so many objections from Thomas Mesereau, when the prosecutor tried to lead her, or tried to get her to say something to be helpful, and they were sustained, sustained, sustained. It was courtroom drama at its finest, or at its worst.

GRACE: Oh, my stars.

Debra Opri, a lawyer`s worst nightmare. You have to object during your own direct examination of your witness.

DEBRA OPRI, JACKSON FAMILY ATTORNEY: Let me tell you something, Nancy. We better understand that Debbie Rowe is going to be taken in total after her testimony is finished. It`s not a good idea for anyone to judge her testimony after 40 minutes.

Let us remember two things. Number one, she voluntarily abandoned her children in return for payment. Number two, there is a strong public policy in the family law courts for both parents to do parenting.

So for her to have made a motion that she wanted her parental rights reinstated, it would have been absent any evidence of her having a detrimental effect on the kids. It was a slam dunk she wasn`t going to get those parental rights reinstated.

So let`s just see what it is. And Debbie Rowe on the stand, wait until Mesereau gets her tomorrow. I hope to be there.

GRACE: Lauren Howard, question to you. A lot of people are being really hard on Debbie Rowe tonight. What was her motivation?

LAUREN HOWARD, PSYCHOTHERAPIST: We have to be hard on Debbie Rowe. I mean, what Anne Bremner said is exactly right. She completely flip- flopped. She`s totally disingenuous. She`s totally opportunistic. Why did she marry and have these children? To serve herself.

GRACE: Well, why did Jackson pay her to have his children?

HOWARD: Because he wanted children.

GRACE: So why is she the bad person?

HOWARD: She`s not the bad person. She`s just an opportunistic person. You know, she makes a statement on the stand that she would stick by Michael and the kids no matter what. No, she will stick by herself no matter what.

GRACE: Quick break. We are live in Santa Maria, California, with all of the latest in the Michael Jackson trial. Will Debbie Rowe being the nail in the coffin for Michael Jackson?

Let`s go to "Trial Tracking": Georgia officials say the parents of Jonah and Nicole Payne, the toddlers found dead in a sewage pond on Monday, have been under the watch of the Georgia Department of Family and Children Services nearly two years. DFCS began watching the Paynes in 2003. They concluded 2-year-old Nicole, 3-year-old Jonah were neglected.

The case was closed this February, reopened a month later. Officials say they were in the Payne home just last week. Nicole and Jonah`s autopsies so far reveal no signs of trauma, but their deaths are still under investigation.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROWE: And I said, "So be a dad." He looked at me puzzled. And I said, "Let me do this. I want to do this. You have been so good to me. You are such a great friend. Please let me do this."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: I guess we`ll never know if Debbie Rowe wanted to do this, that is have sex with Jackson to have children, or get artificially inseminated. That question will likely never be asked in that Santa Maria`s California courthouse.

Straight out to Anne Bremner standing by. Anne, did anybody even touch on this?

BREMNER: Yes. I mean, the question was, after everything failed with the prosecution in terms of trying to hit a mark on this -- you know, trying to show that this was a scripted tape. Then she says, you know, and she talks about good feelings about Michael, wanting to reconcile with the children, you know, et cetera, happy future, he`s my friend.

"Did you lie during the tape?" He finally asked that. And then, well, the answer is yes, about the conception of the children. But we still -- it`s kind of out there. We don`t know what the lie is about. Did they have them the old-fashioned way or was she a surrogate?

GRACE: That`s what I don`t understand, why, Lisa Wayne, she didn`t agree just to be a surrogate and avoid all this masquerading as a family, as a husband, as a wife. What do you say, Lisa?

LISA WAYNE, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: You know, Nancy, all I keep thinking about is something my grandmother use to say, and that is Debbie Rowe is as phony as a $2 bill. You can`t believe anything she says.

GRACE: Wait, who said that?

WAYNE: My grandmother used to say that. I mean...

GRACE: She should be a trial analyst. Can she come on the show tomorrow night? Because listen, if she is as fake as a $2 bill, what is Michael Jackson? He`s the one that hired her and has pretended he`s been sleeping with her. Hello? And that these children were made the old- fashioned way.

WAYNE: But that`s not what the case is about. But, Nancy, what you are talking about is character evidence. And that`s why -- I have to tell you, I think this is going to be a scary witness for the prosecution tomorrow, because this is a mistrial waiting to happen.

Because if they open the door to that character stuff -- and I don`t disagree with you, Nancy. Everybody is dying to know whether or not Michael Jackson is a sexual deviant. Does he sleep with women? Does he like woman?

But that`s not the issue in the case. And I think that the prosecutor is taking some real chances by asking this woman to really vouch for the credibility of their case and to open the door to things that he knows can`t come out with this judge`s ruling.

GRACE: Now, hold on. Lisa, you are saying that, by asking her, "Did you lie in your earlier statements?" And it was all about custody, her earlier statements. But she said the children were born and conceived the old-fashioned way, if she said, "No, I didn`t lie about that," then where are we left?

WAYNE: Well, I think that opens the door up, because the inference that the prosecution wants to make is that, obviously, there is no sex. This is a guy who doesn`t sleep with women.

GRACE: Right. I got you.

WAYNE: And so, I think, you know, you have got to reign that in. And it`s just a familiar theme with the prosecution`s witnesses.

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: Well, I mean, that`s their whole point, Lisa.

But let me go to Jane Velez-Mitchell. She`s joining us. She`s just come out of the courtroom.

Jane Velez-Mitchell, the whole point is for the prosecution that he got sexual gratification from children. Bring me up-to-date from your vantage point in the courtroom, Jane.

JANE VELEZ-MITCHELL, "CELEBRITY JUSTICE": Well, this was absolutely a roller coaster of an afternoon. Forty minutes she`s on the stand and she completely rocked this trial.

Debbie Rowe, of course, was expected to say that the rebuttal interview she gave was highly scripted and she said the exact opposite, that they handed her a list of questions and she said no thanks because she didn`t want anyone to be able to accuse her of being rehearsed down the line.

And she said, as Michael Jackson knows, nobody can tell me what to say. I speak my own mind. But then, of course, she went on to say that she did, in fact, speak untruths and specifically about Michael Jackson`s parenting skills.

I think the jury is still out on this particular witness. Tomorrow, she could come back and say she told a string of lies about Michael Jackson. I don`t know how that helps the conspiracy case but it certainly might make Michael Jackson look very bad.

GRACE: Well, like Lisa Wayne, I have a grandmother that had quite a bit to say, too. And I can tell you this about that. The camel`s nose is in the tent. The tail will surely follow, tomorrow when Debbie Rowe gets back on the witness stand.

We have got an all-star panel lined up to break it down for you and put it back together again. We are live at the Michael Jackson child molestation trial.

As you know, we here at NANCY GRACE want desperately to help solve unsolved homicides, help find missing people. Tonight, take a look at Reuben Blackwell, 12-years-old from Clinton, Maryland. What a little angel. Ruben disappeared May 1996.

If you have any information on this little boy, Rueben Blackwell, please call the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, 1-800- THE-LOST.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWS BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JERMAINE JACKSON, BROTHER OF MICHAEL JACKSON: We all saw on the Bashir special that there was nothing done. The kid stated and his mother stated that Michael was kind to them. And you tell me, how can someone be held against their will at Neverland? Is it that people doesn`t want to leave there because of the joy and the fun? And it is just, Larry, I`m very disappointed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: That`s the brother of Michael Jackson speaking out in Jackson`s defense.

Welcome back. I`m Nancy Grace. Let`s go straight back to the courthouse.

Standing by, Anne Bremner and Jane Velez-Mitchell.

Jane, I understand that the jury was literally on the edge of their seats. Now, that could have had something to do with the fact that all morning they were hearing about phone records and then suddenly in comes Debbie Rowe. Were they that riveted to Rowe? I understand there was electricity.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: They were riveted. You could see the entire jury pool like this, the entire jury box. They were all turned that way. I have never seen that before, leaning forward like this.

This woman clearly captured their imagination. And it certainly obvious why. Here is a woman who has such a complex relationship with this man. It seemed pretty clear to me she still has feelings for him. Remember, way back in the `80s, when she was his nurse, when she worked for his dermatologist, she was obsessed reportedly with Michael Jackson. Her room was plastered with Michael Jackson posters.

She went on to marry him, had kids, then get into a bitter custody dispute. But underneath all that, when she broke up, when the prosecutor asked, why did you want to get reacquainted with him, she said, because he`s my friend. And she broke up. She`s always said theirs was not so much a sexual love, as a love on another level. And I really think that she still has feelings for him.

GRACE: Love on another level. When did she say that?

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, she has said that in published reports, that their love was sort of a different variety, almost -- you get the sense of a platonic love that two people can have that is of a different variety than your regular boyfriend-girlfriend, husband-and-wife kind of love.

And I think that that was the unknown element that perhaps prosecutors didn`t count on that sort of just reared its head at this moment.

GRACE: OK, hold on. Hold on. They were man and wife, according to both of them.

Anne Bremner, I smell a rat. A different kind of love? A special love. A platonic love. OK. Let`s get down to, Anne Bremner, the state is trying to prove child molestation on boys by Jackson. His wife says they had a friendship love, brother-sister love.

BREMNER: That`s right.

GRACE: To me, that helps the state.

BREMNER: Did it what, Nancy?

GRACE: It helps the state.

BREMNER: Oh, yes, yes, absolutely.

I mean, you know, if Michael Jackson had real marriages with Lisa Marie Presley and with Debbie Rowe, it would be a different ball game. But she`s talking about this different kind of love, some groovy kind of love that isn`t husband and wife kind of love. And we don`t know what she is going to say about his parenting skills or about the parentage of these children.

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: It is more the artificial insemination kind of love, I think is what she`s trying to say, Anne Bremner.

BREMNER: That`s exactly right.

GRACE: Let`s put it out there.

(CROSSTALK)

BREMNER: You`re right, Nancy.

GRACE: I mean, we have got to call a pig a pig here. We have to call it like it is.

Jane Velez-Mitchell, did the jury get the drift that she basically has said in the past that she and Jackson were just friends?

VELEZ-MITCHELL: What I am trying to explain is her motivation for being so anticlimactic on the stand. The prosecution promised she would deliver this bombshell and she didn`t.

I believe, at one point, I think I saw her go over and kind of smile at Jackson. What I`m trying to say is, her motivations for how she behaved on the stand today are very, very complex. And I think there was something that was kind of an undertow, that was kind of motivating her either on a conscious or an unconscious level to help Jackson out, even though she is his purported enemy. Am I making myself clear?

GRACE: Yes, perfect sense.

Art Harris has been covering this case for years. Art Harris, do you feel in any way that Debbie Rowe has been manipulated? She has obviously been a huge Jackson fan her whole life. He agrees to have children with her. How, I don`t know. But they have the two kids. That`s the bottom line. And now she`s in court. Still, it seems as though Jackson is pulling the strengths on Debbie Rowe.

HARRIS: It seems like she`s trying to win this one with honey, instead of vinegar, Nancy, maybe feeling that it will be easier to get custody down the line if she is more conciliatory here.

Now, what is fascinating though, is, let`s take a look at how connected she is. I can tell you, she has seen him naked as his nurse. It is in this police affidavit that I have from 1993.

GRACE: I notice you said as his nurse and not as his wife. That`s not lost on me, Art Harris. But go ahead.

HARRIS: I don`t have evidence of that.

But do I have the interview here that detectives did with her and her doctor. She traveled with him around the world, gave him injections for acne and other things and befriended him.

GRACE: Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait. What other things would somebody being -- get injections?

HARRIS: Well, she was treating him for vitiligo. This was the blotches on the skin, which raises another thing that police say she has in common with the `93 victim, that he also saw Jackson naked and could identify and specifically point out what these blotches were.

If for some reason he changes his mind and shows up to testify, those photographs taken back then from the search warrant could come in of his body. Debbie Rowe might be asked to say, were those blotches there when you knew him in the `90s? I mean, it is a wild turn, Nancy. But she is now in the unenviable position of having to testify against somebody who is really her sugar daddy.

GRACE: Well, really, she has got to testify against someone that has control of her children.

Now, very quickly to Jane Velez-Mitchell.

Is it true, Jane, that the prosecution with its own witness, Debbie Rowe, on the stand basically had to eject while their own witness was on the stand?

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, you know, so much was going on. I was so focused on watching her and trying to understand her behavior. I really didn`t get a sense. They put on a good show, the prosecution. They didn`t sort of keel over and go, oh, my gosh, she`s not saying what we expect her to say.

So, I think they were trying to sort of act as if and put on a good face for the jury, because those of us who were sitting there watching this in the media were like, whoa, she`s not saying what they promised. Ron Zonen, the deputy DA, said she would say that this was highly scripted. She would say her kids were used as pawns.

What she said was, she had expectations of getting reacquainted with her kids and getting reacquainted with Michael Jackson. And that`s when she broke down and said because he`s my friend and started crying. I mean, how do you deal with that when you`re the prosecutor?

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: To Lauren Howard.

Lauren, on the stand today, Debbie Rowe. And said that she believed that, if she did the video to help Michael Jackson repair his reputation, she could see her children.

HOWARD: But she didn`t want to see her children. She doesn`t want her children. She gave her children up voluntarily.

GRACE: Then why do the video in order to see the children if she didn`t want to see the children? That is what she said.

HOWARD: Because seeing the children, having contact with the children, having the children under her aegis, gives her money. At the end of the day, it gives her money. It gives her presence with Michael Jackson, who she is clearly obsessed with. You want to call it a groovy kind of love, that`s fine. I call it something else.

GRACE: Is that the way she came across, Anne Bremner?

BREMNER: You know what? The way -- yes, she came across in ways that were just confounding. But it was almost like she was in this fugue state in terms of kind of a love for Michael Jackson, whatever it was, that somehow she turned.

And the question is, why has she turned? Because we know she told the prosecutors these things. They wouldn`t have represented those things to the court unless they had a good-faith basis to say it. And she didn`t say those things today. She smiled at him. She was very amorphous about wanting to see the children again in her motives in doing this video. Was she threatened? Does she love him?

GRACE: OK. At the courthouse, Jane Velez-Mitchell. Also with us there, Anne Bremner.

Debbie Rowe, Jackson`s ex-wife, on the stand. We haven`t even told you about the defense asking for a mistrial, trying to get the charges thrown out today.

We`ll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEBBIE ROWE, EX-WIFE OF MICHAEL JACKSON: We are a family unit. Michael and I will always be connected with the kids. I`ll always be there for him. I will always be there for the children. And people make remarks oh, I can`t believe she left her children. Left them? I left my children? I did not leave my children. My children are with their father, where they are supposed to be.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Elizabeth (ph), what happened to the music? Oh, that was the mood music for the background. Oh, I get it now.

Anne Bremner, did the jury see the mood music and the fire and the comfy sofa and Debbie Rowe talking about her connectedness to the family unit, the one she hasn`t seen since 1999? Hello.

BREMNER: Yes. Well, they`re going to see all of it, Nancy. You know, there was nine hours of taping. She came down to, I think, three. And the mood music is there. It is just kind of whack-a-doodle.

GRACE: I understand that is a legal technical in your jurisdiction of Seattle.

(LAUGHTER)

BREMNER: It is.

GRACE: Let me go to Jane Velez-Mitchell.

Whack-a-doodle, would that basically sum up what happened in the last 40 minutes of court today?

VELEZ-MITCHELL: I`m telling you, my head is spinning. This is such a wild day. It`s such a wild trial. And the pattern that I`m seeing really gets down to celebrity justice. That happens to be the name of the show I work for, but it is also really what is at work here.

GRACE: Shameless plug. Shameless plug.

(CROSSTALK)

(LAUGHTER)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Thank you.

But there`s a point here. Michael Jackson is a superstar with charisma. All these people who are supposed to be his enemies get up there on the witness stand, speaking for the prosecution, and they proceed to smile at Michael Jackson. Hamid Moslehi, his former videographer, who is suing Michael Jackson for unpaid invoices, smiled at Michael Jackson.

There is sort of this draw that he has. Even people who are supposedly his enemy seem to be drawn in by his charisma. And it is the factor that the prosecution seems to be so confounded by. They expect people to get up and behave a certain way.

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: And they don`t because they see Michael Jackson.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: And they don`t because they are staring at Michael Jackson. Yes.

Let me go to Lisa Wayne, defense attorney.

Lisa, for a moment, defense attorney hat off, my prosecution hat off. I have had a witness on the stand many times. We have gone over and over the testimony. They know what the questions are. They know where we`re going. No surprises. They get on the stand and somehow they melt. They give you the opposite answers of what they had just said out in the hall in a preinterview.

And you just look at them. What can you do? You can`t say, hey, you are lying. The jury is watching. The judge is watching. What can you do? The state is stuck between a rock and a hard spot.

(CROSSTALK)

WAYNE: It is. And that is always the part for the lawyer where we have that out-of-body experience and go, whoa. Wait a minute. We weren`t prepared.

GRACE: Ruh-roh.

WAYNE: But, if, in fact -- the bottom line for me on this case is that a prosecutor made an opening statement with the anticipation of evidence they sure should have thought they had. You just don`t do that. You don`t overstep your boundaries, because you lose credibility, Nancy.

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: Anne Bremner, so did Tom Mesereau. Remember, we already have gotten him in four or five...

WAYNE: And that`s a problem.

GRACE: Anne Bremner, promises in opening that have been totally disproved in the state`s case. So, they have both done it.

BREMNER: That`s a problem. And you know what? That`s a fundamental mistake by lawyers.

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: Go ahead, Anne.

BREMNER: Well, yes.

With Mesereau, he basically said that three comedians would say the opposite of what they said, that mother was after money and that she went to these various people trying to get money under false pretenses and use it for herself. Not one of them came through saying what he said they would say.

GRACE: Yes.

BREMNER: They said the opposite.

GRACE: And they were very reliable witnesses, George Lopez.

BREMNER: They were excellent, excellent witnesses.

GRACE: Another female comedian, Jamie Masada.

To Lauren Howard here in the studio with me, psychotherapist.

This whole theory that Jane Velez-Mitchell from "Celebrity Justice," Jane, and Anne Bremner are telling us about, how this woman just kind of melted like a little ice cube when she saw Michael Jackson, in all of his regalia, sitting there. It all goes back to obsession.

HOWARD: It is all obsession.

And you look at the fans outside. I mean, you have a man who dangled an infant baby off a balcony and everyone is just sort of sitting around and saying, what a great guy? You have got these fans who are absolutely obsessed.

GRACE: Ouch. Oh.

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: Wait. No, no. Take a look. There is Blanket. That`s the child`s name.

HOWARD: Excuse me.

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: He`s up on a balcony. Let`s see. What was it, Ellie (ph)? What floor is he on? The 16th, the 20th floor? Yes. She is saying yes. And the baby was kicking for its life.

HOWARD: And yet you have this mass of people who are coming out in droves in support of this man and the way he handles children, his behavior with children.

He`s incredibly seductive. He is, you know, what we call a kinder, gentler child molester, because he`s not violent. He`s sweet and loving.

GRACE: I`ve never used those exact words.

HOWARD: And loving. That is exactly right. And I hope you never do.

But this is a seducer. This is a Svengali. And Debbie Rowe is in his throes. And so are all the other people surrounding him.

GRACE: You know, back to Art Harris, investigative reporter with "The Insider."

Art has the actual document under-oath testimony by Rowe when she was giving up her parental rights. That was in, what, 2002?

HARRIS: Two thousand one, Nancy.

GRACE: Now, Art Harris, the reality is, if she has got all that on the record under oath, what can she possibly say now? She`s stuck with her 2001 testimony.

HARRIS: Well, think about it. If she had come out slamming Michael Jackson, Mesereau could have come back and waved this in her face and saying, but you said here he was a wonderful father and you wanted to give him these kids and you find nothing wrong and you can`t imagine that, even if he dies, he must have somebody else designated to take care of the kids. You don`t want them then. You want his choice.

GRACE: Ouch.

HARRIS: Yes. It is all under oath.

GRACE: Man. Man. Oh, Manishevitz.

Jane Velez-Mitchell, all the defense has to do is go down to Kinko`s and blow that up on a big poster board and say, even if Jackson dies, I don`t want kids. That`s what she said, right, Art Harris?

HARRIS: It`s in here.

"Have you ever considered the possibility, if Michael should die, what will happen to the children?"

"I`m sure he has a wonderful person in mind to take care of them."

"You understand you will not have a right to take care of the children?"

"I don`t want to. And not that I don`t love them. No, I do. I think they are adorable. They are his kids. They are not my kids. They`re not my kids."

That`s what she said.

GRACE: Let me go straight back to Jane Velez-Mitchell.

Jane, what do you expect tomorrow?

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, tomorrow could be a better day for the prosecution, if she goes into a litany of lies that she said she told on this rebuttal tape.

But I think the bigger issue is a couple things that you have mentioned. One, everybody who has taken the stand seems to have so many depositions and statements that they made so many times that Tom Mesereau, the defense attorney, has boxes and boxes and boxes of things to impeach them with. So it`s so hard. These are not fresh people. These are people who have been interviewed gazillions of times, it feels like.

And they are easily impeachable for that witness -- that reason. Who remains absolutely consistent about anything over the years? The second point I think that is really, really the heart of this whole thing is, this is a woman that gave away two of her children. People who say it is just about money I don`t think really understand psychology. You have to really be in somebody`s thrall, much deeper than wanting money, to give away your flesh and blood.

And the fact that she was able to do that many years ago means that she`s perfectly capable of getting up here on the stand and not giving the prosecution what they want, because she`s in his thrall. She gave her kids to them. Do you know what that takes psychologically, how much power somebody has to has over you in order to get you to give them your flesh and blood? I mean, think about it.

GRACE: And, of course, now in the courtroom, she`s about, what, 20 feet away from him?

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes.

GRACE: OK. All right. No wonder she melted like an ice cube.

Quick break, everybody. We`ll be right back.

Let`s go to tonight`s all-points bulletin.

The FBI and law enforcement authorities are on the lookout for this man, Russell Earl Winstead, wanted for stabbing his 86-year-old aunt to death after she refused to give him money. The crime happened January 12, 2003, Kentucky. Winstead, 40 years old, 6`1``, 180 pounds, black hair, brown eyes. Take a look, the FBI offering up to $10,000 for any information leading to Winstead`s arrest.

If you have information, call the FBI, 202-324-3000.

Local news for some of you, but we`ll be right back. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRACE: Welcome back, everybody. I`m Nancy Grace. We`re live in Santa Maria, California, and the latest in the Michael Jackson child sex trial.

Straight back to Jane Velez-Mitchell.

There was a motion today by the defense for a mistrial, to have the case thrown out. What happened and how did the judge rule?

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, basically, the judge listened to arguments from both sides and said mistrial, not. And he has done this several times.

There have been up to, I`d say, four or five requests for a mistrial from the defense. In this case, they were upset that one of the deputy DAs talked about sleeping with boys in a question to a witness after the judge had specifically reminded everybody that that kind of questioning is out of line. So, they said that that was highly prejudicial and stuck in the jury`s minds.

GRACE: OK.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: And the judge said no. But they do this all the time. They ask for mistrials constantly.

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: Yes. Yes.

Anne Bremner, I understood that the personal videographer, Hamid Moslehi, on the stand, the prosecution asked about the outtakes, essentially, suggesting that there was more information about Jackson sleeping with boys in the outtakes.

BREMNER: Right.

GRACE: And that caused a motion for a mistrial, correct?

BREMNER: Yes. Yes. That`s right. And, of course, it was denied, but there`s been a number of these motions made. And that is correct, Nancy.

GRACE: OK.

So, Anne Bremner, you are a trial lawyer. What do you think the prosecution is doing with Jackson`s ex tonight?

BREMNER: Woodshedding? I mean, crying? I don`t know.

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: Well, I can tell you this much. They are probably taking her to school and schooling her on the questions for tomorrow.

BREMNER: They are taking her to school.

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: The bottom line, if they try to coach her, if they try to coach her, that will be question one on cross-examination.

BREMNER: You bet. You bet.

GRACE: I want to thank all of my fantastic guests tonight, Jane Velez-Mitchell, Art Harris, Anne Bremner, here in the studio with me, psychotherapist Lauren Howard, Debra Opri with us earlier, the Jackson family lawyer.

But, as always, my biggest thank you is to you for being with us tonight, inviting all of us into your home.

Coming up, headlines from around the world.

Remember, Court TV live coverage of the Jackson trial tomorrow, 3:00 to 5:00 Eastern.

I`m Nancy Grace, signing off for tonight. Hope to see you right here tomorrow night, 8:00 sharp Eastern.

And, until then, good night, friend.

END