Rowe Didn’t Spill & Burkle Is Out
Wednesday, November 30th, 2005By Roger Friedman
Debbie Rowe did not tell an Irish newspaper that Michael Jackson isn’t the
biological father of her children. Her friends tell me she has no idea why
such a story suddenly spilled out. Rowe, I’m told, is recovering from the
flu and, friends say, is pretty sure it’s not jet lag from traveling to
Ireland.
In fact, friends say, it doesn’t even make sense, since Rowe could get
millions for an official interview about her kids. “Why would she give a
free interview to a small paper in Ireland?” they ask.
Rowe thinks the story may be a result of Jackson’s anti-Semitic comments
that were broadcast last week, combined with the fact that Rowe converted
from Catholicism to Judaism, making Prince and Paris Jewish.
“The other irony is that most of Jackson’s lawyers and accountants are
Jewish,” says an insider. “I wonder what they think of all this.”
There’s been no progress so far in Rowe’s custody case despite erroneous
reports of many different arrangements.
Jackson, however, has his own problems. Aside from a barrage of expensive
lawsuits, a dwindling cash situation and a never-released charity single,
the former pop star was recently kicked to the curb by his financial angel,
multi-millionaire Ron Burkle, the grocery store chain mogul and Democratic
Party fundraiser.
Burkle, currently said to be traveling abroad with former president Bill
Clinton, stepped in last June and tried to untangle Jackson’s money messes.
I’m told that after four months he’s decided to call it quits, and has ceded
operations back to Michael’s brother Randy and the Prince of Bahrain.
Jackson had thought Burkle would cover his soon to expire $270 million worth
of loans, and help him retain his 50 percent ownership of Sony/ATV Music
Publishing.
But Burkle would not do that, and I’m told whatever money he loaned to
Jackson has been recovered or replaced, perhaps by the prince.
The one thing Burkle is said to have accomplished during his short run was
settle a lawsuit filed by videographer Hamid Moslehi. Presumably, such a
settlement would include Moslehi turning over footage from the “rebuttal
video” he filed with the Arvizo family in February 2003, the making of which
was the painstakingly wrong thesis developed by the prosecutors in their
botched child molestation case against Jackson.
And that brings us to this latest news from Santa Maria. Jackson, British
tabloids say, is being investigated by failed Santa Barbara District
Attorney Tom Sneddon for either drug abuse or drug trafficking.
As someone who spent four months in a courtroom this year with Jackson and
Sneddon, I can tell you that this seems like sour grapes. Whatever Jackson’s
drug problems are, this comes off as Sneddon trying to save face after
costing the city of Santa Maria and Santa Barbara County millions to promote
his own agenda.
Sneddon says now that investigators found cocaine on the clothes they took
from Neverland in their original search. That was two years ago. If Sneddon
had a case then, he should have brought it. To do it now reeks of the
small-minded thinking that got him in the hot water he’s in today.
The funniest part of this new Sneddon ploy is the idea that Jackson could
somehow be flying illegal drugs from Los Angeles to Bahrain.
First of all, Jackson doesn’t have the money to do that. Second, maybe
Sneddon is unaware that Jackson, if he needed to, could get any drugs he
wanted right where he is.
It’s hard to believe the people of Santa Maria and of Santa Barbara County
are still permitting Sneddon to spend their money on a personal vendetta. If
I were a voter and taxpayer there, I’d be outraged.
Source: FOXNews
