DATE: Wednesday, August 13, 1997            TAG: 9708130895
SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C4   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS 
DATELINE: WARRENTON, VA.                    LENGTH:   36 lines

TV CAMERAS BARRED FROM COURTROOM JUDGE SAYS THE COOKE CASE COULD INVOLVE SENSITIVE OR EXPLICIT TESTIMONY.

Saying the case could involve sensitive or explicit testimony about the marriage of Jack Kent Cooke, a judge Tuesday barred television cameras from the courtroom fight over the late sports owner's will.

Lawyers for the Washington Redskins owners' estate and for Cooke's widow, Marlena Ramallo Cooke, argued against televising court proceedings in the complicated case.

``These facts relate to the intimacy of a man and woman's marriage,'' said Brendan V. Sullivan Jr., Mrs. Cooke's lawyer.

Fauquier Circuit Judge William Shore Robertson said although Virginia law permits cameras in courtrooms for most cases, divorce and some other family matters are excluded.

Details of the Cookes' home life edge too close to that line, Robertson said. Once caught on camera, testimony about the couple's sex life, for example, could not be kept off the airwaves, he said.

Cooke cut his wife out of his will weeks before he died April 6 at 84. Lawyers for his estate claim Mrs. Cooke violated a premarital agreement by maintaining a separate apartment during the marriage and by abandoning her husband in the last weeks of his life.

The estate claims Mrs. Cooke is not entitled to any money, nor is she entitled to go on living in the couple's Washington mansion.

Mrs. Cooke, 44, wants a jury trial and up to one-third of Cooke's estimated $825 million estate. ILLUSTRATION: Jack Kent Cooke, left, cut his wife, Marlena Ramallo,

out of his will just weeks before he died at 84.

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu