NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Pop singer Bobby Goldsboro was denied custody of his 8-year-old daughter by an appeals court that cited testimony he kept a vast store of pornography and molested another of his daughters.
The court said it was 'almost startling' that Goldsboro's wife, Mary Alice Watson, 38, was given custody of the couple's youngest child because she admitted having affairs with men 'the approximate age of her (teenage) son' and allowed her 'children to party at her home far into the night.'
But the three-judge panel of the Tennessee Court of Appeals said testimony against Goldsboro, best known for the such songs as 'Honey,' 'Watching Scotty Grow' and 'The Straight Life,' was even worse.
There was no contest over custody of two children, Terri, 17, and Danny, 19.
Goldsboro, 42, had appealed a Circuit Court ruling granting his wife custody of the youngest child and one-third of their $3 million estate. Goldsboro's attorney, Joe P. Binkley, said Wednesday night he would appeal the ruling to the state Supreme Court.
The appeals court said, 'Sometime in 1980, Mrs. Goldsboro began to act irresponsibly, allowing young friends of hers and her children to party at her home far into the night.
'There is corroborated testimony in the record that Mrs. Goldsboro admitted having affairs with at least two men between 17 and 20 years of age, the approximate age of her son.
'At the parties held at the Goldsboro home the participants often became intoxicated and one or more of the couples, including her daughter, Terri, would sleep together in one of the bedrooms of the house with the apparent approval of Mrs. Goldsboro.'
'Considering the testimony against her, that part of the court's decision seems almost startling,' Judge Ben Cantrell wrote in the opinion.'Unfortunately, for Mr. Goldsboro, the record contains proof from which one could conclude that he was not a proper person to have custody of the child (Brandy).
'The other daughter, Terri, testified that her father had molested her and a friend of hers five years before the trial at a time when they were eleven years old. After hearing the testimony from the girls and Mr. Goldsboro's explanation of the incident, the trial judge chose to believe neither.
'Perhaps of greater significance to the lower court was a large store of pornographic material kept by Mr. Goldsboro, some of it featuring young girls,' Cantrell wrote.
