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Michael Jackson was harangued and harassed for the last few weeks of his life by his father, Joseph. The point of it: to install Leonard Rowe as Michael’s financial adviser and to let Rowe promote Michael’s lucrative London shows.

Michael, afraid of his father, may have finally caved in just to shoo the pair away.

But what Michael didn’t know is that Rowe, not related to Debbie Rowe, has quite a colorful history when it comes to the law–and to the Jacksons. The only time the Jacksons used him as a concert promoter was in 1979. But that ended badly when Rowe stopped payment to them on a $150,000 check. Joe Jackson may have forgotten this. Consequently, Rowe was not asked to help on either the 1981 or 1984 tours.

According to records, Rowe has served time in prison at least twice for fraud and writing bad checks. He’s well known to the U.S. government and law enforcement officials for writing checks on non-existent banks, being arrested, and then failing to make restitution. He’s also been convicted for wire fraud. He wasn’t at Michael’s last live concert in 2001, because he was serving a two-year sentence.

Rowe also has in legal history several federal and local tax liens in Georgia, and an arrest for possession of marijuana.

In 1998, Rowe started what would turn out to be a seven-year nuisance campaign against a number of talent agencies. He brought a massive lawsuit against them that was ultimately thrown out of court on appeal in 2005.

Last year he was ordered to pay R. Kelly $3.4 million after losing a lawsuit filed by the singer, again for fraud. Rowe was found guilty of booking fake concerts. He also had to pay Ne-Yo $700,000. A Lexis Nexis search of Rowe’s resume also turned up a 1984 bankruptcy.

The fear now by Jackson insiders is that if Katherine Jackson were to be added as an executor to Michael’s will, husband Joseph would exert his influence over her to bring Rowe into the picture. For Jackson’s kids, the result could be devastating.

Even though the Jacksons live separate lives, Mrs.Jackson has conceded that she has “no stomach” for fighting or “ugliness” and usually gives in to her husband’s wishes.

More to come on that subject…

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Michael Jackson’s father, whom he feared and loathed, got to say whatever was on his, er, mind last on “Larry King Live.”

Jackson is bad enough on his own, but he brought along concert promoter Leonard Rowe. Larry did not ask Leonard about losing a lawsuit with singer R. Kelly last year and having to pay him $3.4 million in damages. Rowe also had to pay R&B Grammy award winner Ne-Yo $700,000.

Rowe has a sketchy history at best. In 1998 he launched a lawsuit against the William Morris Agency, CAA and other group claiming racism as the reason he couldn’t promote more concerts. On December 30, 2005 ,after losing the case and appealing it, Rowe was finally crushed by a federal appeals court judge. A year earlier, another judge, finding for the defendants, wrote: “plaintiffs raised no genuine issue of material fact and that no rational trier of fact could find for plaintiffs on any of the myriad of claims made in this action.”

Jackson and Rowe (who is certainly no relation to Debbie Rowe) proved to be a hilarious but sad duo on King’s show. Joe Jackson’s claim that he never abused Michael’after reams of evidence including Michael’s own heartfelt assertions, La Toya’s book, and plenty of eyewitness accounts’demonstrated his inability to reason fact and fiction. Joe Jackson also claimed not to know what’s happened to Michael’s body’still not buried in a final resting place after nearly four weeks.

In this session, in which both Jackson and Rowe may have crossed the line legally with AEG Live and Tohme Tohme, Rowe insisted that he had a signed document from Michael Jackson dated March 25, 2009. According to sources at Jackson’s home’I reported this when it happened’this pair kept pounding on Michael’s door until he let them in. They wouldn’t give up until Michael signed something. Joe Jackson evidently said to Michael, “I’m broke and it’s your fault.”

The timing of this is interesting. It was the same weekend when the pair issued a press release announcing they were now Michael’s managers. (They weren’t.) They also called yours truly to enlist my help in overtaking AEG Live and wresting control of Michael’s money. I declined. I have the phone record to prove they called me one week before all this started, on March 18th, at 3:40pm. We spoke for four minutes. I recorded Joe’s number in my phone. Joe said, “I have Leonard Rowe right here” and started squawking that they were going to take over Michael’s shows. I offered that that was impossible. We didn’t so much hang up as Joe just drifted away.

There’s more about Rowe’s history in the concert business. If he forces the issue, all his past associates are going to come crawling out of the woodwork. In the meantime, my sources do say that it’s Joe and Leonard who are now haranguing Katherine Jackson to get a bigger piece of Michael’s estate. The ugliness goes on unabated.

Sony Pictures is in final negotiations to acquire the film that will be made out of ‘Michael Jackson’s rehearsals for his “This Is It” concert tour. The price: $60 million, above initial projections reported elsewhere.

Sony and AEG Live have set the release date for Halloween week: Friday, Oct. 30.

And to give credit where it’s due, my friends at Hitsdailydouble.com are correct in saying that the split on the money is 90% to the Jackson estate and 10% to AEG Live. The Jackson estate means Michael’s kids and his mother and the eventual charity that will be formed in Michael’s name.

I am told, as I reported earlier, that the hoped for Aug. 29 show in London seems to be dead. NBC wasn’t the only network not interested. And the reason? Joseph Jackson shopped his own special to the networks, which confused everything, sources say. “He didn’t even tell Janet that she was supposed to be part of it.”

And the beat goes on …

I told you right after Michael Jackson died that AEG Live had 100 hours of rehearsal footage on film. I also told you that they had enough music for 2 live CDs. Some people are just reporting this now. Better late than never.

Randy Phillips of AEG Live was described in another column yesterday as being “ghoulish” about all this. Far from it: the film Phillips and Kenny Ortega are racing to put together could mean $100 million for the Jackson estate, meaning Michael’s kids. That’s a gift of foresight.

Phillips says the footage ‘ which was shown last week to Paramount, Sony, Universal and Fox ‘ “will show everyone what good shape he was in. He’s in all the decision-making about how the show is being put together. No one will be able to say he was out of it.

“From the beginning, we knew he’d had two incredible rehearsals back to back right before he died. The film will show all the auditions leading up to those shows, including the ones with dancers and musicians. Ironically, it’s the movie Michael always dreamt of making but could never get together.”

Phillips says everyone’s working overtime getting the final presentation in order. He did not tell me this, but I do expect that for Christmas we will have this film, a companion CD soundtrack from Sony, and a box set of CDs as well.

And: just so Michael’s fans know, the August 29th date in London is still on hold. A decision will be made soon whether to go ahead with it. Phillips says it requires transporting much of the production from Los Angeles ‘ ‘and just for one night.

It’s inadvertent wording’or is it?

In the defamation lawsuit filed on July 16th in Los Angeles by Debbie Rowe against Rebecca White, you can read between the lines and see something that may be very revealing.

Rowe sued White for defamation after the TV show “Extra” let White say she had emails from Rowe saying she didn’t want custody of her kids with Michael Jackson.

The lawsuit was mentioned by websites like TMZ.com. But for the first time, no one bothered to publish the actual papers. Not only do they show Rowe as allegedly victimized by a prevaricator, they also shine a light on the paternity of Prince Michael I and Paris Katherine Jackson.

At the beginning of the complaint, there is this summary for the judge: “Ms. Rowe is the mother of two children born during her marriage (dissolved 2000) to the internationally renowned performer Michael Joseph Jackson.”

Very oddly, and perhaps importantly, Rowe’s attorney does not cite Michael Jackson as the childrens’ father. Rowe is the mother of children “born during her marriage.” Indeed, the word “father” does not appear at all in the 15-page document.

Lawyers are usually very specific about wording in any cases, especially high-profile ones. What Rowe’s complaint does not say: Debbie and Jackson were the parents of these children. This would certainly seem to suggest that Jackson was not the father of these children.

Something similar popped up legally back in April 2005 during Jackson’s criminal trial. Attorney Robert Sanger was arguing in front of Judge Rodney Melville (with the jury out of the room). I wrote about this then, but it’s important to remember that Sanger said on the record that certain evidence would be admitted’quote’”The circumstances that relate to the birth of the children wouldn’t be admitted for the truth of the matter. Only his love of the children.”

The fact that Michael Jackson was not the biological father of Debbie Rowe’s children: It’s there, in legal documents, hiding in plain sight.

Meanwhile, it’s instructive to note that White, the alleged defamer here, is also accused by Rowe’s attorneys of making up stories about Naomi Campbell and the late Heath Ledger for profit. The complaint also claims that White asked Rowe for money, and, most importantly, that she fabricated the emails upon which “Extra” based its story.

And the last bit is the most disturbing: didn’t “Extra” check the validity of White’s claims? Didn’t they verify that the emails existed, and that they came from Rowe? Didn’t they learn anything from Dan Rather’s infamous memo misfortune?