Michael Jackson a "Sociopath"?

Last week at Michael Jackson's molestation trial, Debbie Rowe used many words to describe her ex-husband. "Sociopath" wasn't one of them.

But in a police interview one year earlier, Rowe pegged the pop star as a personality challenged person who treated his own children as property, an investigator in the Jackson case told jurors Tuesday.

Sergeant Steve Robel of the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department was called to the stand to help the prosecution take down Jackson a couple of notches after Rowe, another of its own witnesses, hailed the entertainer as a "generous," "brilliant" man who was "great with kids."

In other key testimony, an accountant testified that Jackson had only $38,000 in cash on hand the month he allegedly molested a 13-year-old boy, and conspired to ship the child and his family off to Brazil.

As the prosecution moved toward wrapping up its case (but didn't quite make it to the finish line), tying up loose ends was the order of the day. Among the loosest of ends: the testimony of Debbie Rowe, the mother of Jackson's two eldest children.

According to Robel, Rowe was free of praise for Jackson when he interviewed her in March 2004.

"She referred to Michael as a sociopath and his children as being possessions," Robel testified.

When asked by prosecutor Tom Sneddon if Rowe described Jackson as a "good parent" or a "wonderful father"--some of the adjectives the former nurse applied to her ex-husband in the Santa Maria, California, courtroom--Robel said no.

But defense attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr. pointed out that Rowe never offered any assessment of Jackson's parenting skills to Robel because the detective never brought up the subject.

For his next trick, Mesereau suggested that Rowe, currently engaged in a custody war with Jackson, was in a testy mood when she made the sociopathic crack.

"She says [to Robel], 'F--- his defense at this point. I want the kids,' " Mesereau said, reading from a transcript of the police interview.

But Robel maintained that Rowe didn't seem upset when they talked. And if Rowe seemed upbeat about Jackson in court and in a 2003 TV interview, then the detective said Rowe talked of "a plan" in which she would only "talk positive" of her former husband in public following their 1999 divorce.

Among Rowe's most prosecution-damaging testimony was her assertion that she sat down for the 2003 TV interview of her own free will, speaking her own free mind. According to the prosecution, both Rowe and the accuser's family were forced by Jackson's camp to say nice things about the singer in heavily choreographed and scripted videos.

Both videos were made in response to the Martin Bashir documentary, Living with Michael Jackson, which debuted on ABC on Feb. 6, 2003. The prosecution has argued the special was a PR disaster that sent Jackson's camp reeling--and threatened to send the singer's already-precarious finances reeling by hurting his future earning potential.

On the stand, John Duross O'Bryan told jurors that in February 2003 Jackson had just $38,000 in walking-around money, and $10.5 million in IOUs to various vendors.

"The expenditures have exceeded income. The liabilities have increased. And there is a liquidity crisis or a cash crisis which looms and has been ongoing," O'Bryan said, describing Jackson's financial state at the time of the allegations.

The further O'Bryan dug, the bigger Jackson's financial hole went. According to a June 2002 balance sheet, the Grammy-winning superstar, overspending by $20 million-$30 million a year, was in the red to the tune of $285 million, O'Bryan said.

Per a ruling by Superior Court Judge Rodney S. Melville, O'Bryan was allowed to do a forensic accounting of Jackson's bottom line from 1999-2004 in order to help the prosecution argue its follow-the-money motive.

Jackson has long denied reports of his financial demise. In court, Mesereau took up the cause, arguing that O'Bryan seriously undervalued Jackson's stake in the music-publishing catalog rich with hit songs by the Beatles and Elvis Presley.

Mesereau said the catalog was worth $1 billion and that Jackson could easily sell off his half-share if he was as cash-strapped as the prosecution's expert witness claimed.

But O'Bryan was undeterred.

"If it could have been solved, why wasn't it?" O'Bryan asked. "I mean, there were documents that there's $10 million being unpaid. There's documents vendors are threatening lawsuits. If it's that easy to fix, why don't you fix it?"

Undeterred himself, Mesereau suggested O'Bryan didn't have access to bank statements and other records, and, thus, didn't have the full story on Jackson's bank account.

In a neat twist, Mesereau played along with O'Bryan's numbers at one point in order to mock the prosecution's argument that Jackson was financially motivated to molest his alleged victim and ship the kid out of the country.

Noting that Jackson's team reportedly was offered $7 million for a Fox documentary that was to feature interviews with Rowe and the accuser's family (only Rowe's made the final cut), Mesereau asked if that $7 million would have solved Jackson's "cash crisis" as O'Bryan saw it. The accountant said it would not have.

"Wouldn't be worth committing a crime over $7 million in that situation, would it?" Mesereau asked.

The prosecution quickly objected; O'Bryan was not allowed to answer.

Also on the stand: sheriff's Detective Craig Bonner, who finally helped the prosecution link Jackson to the "Jesus juice" that the star is accused of pushing on his alleged victim.

Bonner said he seized from the office of Frederic Marc Schaffel, one of Jackson's unindicted coconspirators, a video that contained alternative footage from the Bashir shoot.

In the video, according to Bonner, Jackson says to Bashir, "You don't have, like, a little bit of Jesus juice, a little bit of wine."

As jurors are by well now aware, "Jesus juice" is white wine served in a Diet Coke can.

Jackson, 46, has pleaded innocent to all charges.