LOS ANGELES, June 30 (Xinhua) -- The mother of Michael Jackson's two older children was contemplating a legal battle for custody, while funeral details were still not announced for the pop superstar who unexpectedly died on Thursday at his Los Angeles home.
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Debbie Rowe, Michael Jackson's ex-wife and mother of two of his children, walks past a magnetometer at the Santa Barbara county courthouse in Santa Maria, California in this April 28, 2005 file photo. An appeals court on February 15, 2006 reinstated an order granting Michael Jackson sole custody of his two children with ex-wife Debbie Rowe, despite her concerns over the singer's child molestation trial. California's 2nd District Court of Appeals ruled that Rowe, who in 2001 signed away her parental rights to the 47-year-old performer's two oldest children, Michael Jr. and Paris, had no legal grounds to terminate that arrangement.(Xinhua/Peng Zhangqing) Photo Gallery>>> |
Debbie Rowe, who delivered two of Jackson's children,
was reportedly considering whether to contest a court ruling giving temporary
custody of the kids to the late singer's 79-year-old mother.
A Los Angeles Superior Court judge on Monday granted
Katherine Jackson temporary custody of Jackson's three children. The youngest
was born to an unidentified surrogate mother.
According to legal papers filed in the court,
Jackson's three children are the sole beneficiaries of his estate, which is
worth hundreds of millions of dollars, although the pop icon was reported to owe
some 400 million dollars when he died at the age of 50.
The judge on Monday also appointed Jackson's mother
special administrator of her son's estate to protect its assets, including his
own music catalog and the Beatles catalog that he bought in 1985.
A hearing was scheduled for July 6 to consider
permanent arrangements regarding both the singer's estate and children.
According to Rowe's lawyer, the ex-wife of Jackson is
considering whether to seek custody or continued visitation rights. The lawyer
said Rowe will decide within the next several days how to respond to Katherine
Jackson's petition for temporary custody.
Anticipating a legal fight, the Jackson family has
argued in court filings that Rowe has had no relationship with her children, and
that giving her custody would cause them harm.
Court papers filed in the case indicate that the
Jackson family is anticipating a tussle not only over the children but also over
the estate, with their lawyers asserting that they do not know of a will but
that it was possible that someone will emerge claiming to have one.
Meanwhile, funeral and memorial services were still
pending on Tuesday as the family was still waiting for the exact cause of the
singer's death.
The family commissioned a private autopsy on Saturday
in hopes of getting results faster, after an official one by the Los Angeles
County coroner, which is expected to take four to six weeks to announce final
results pending further toxicology tests.
Michael Jackson was pronounced dead on Thursday
afternoon at UCLA Medical Center, soon after he was rushed there in a deep coma
by emergency paramedics from his rented estate in a wealthy Los Angeles suburb,
where he was preparing a comeback series of 50 concerts in London.