James Broke Her Arm, Woman Says : Trials: The witness testifies that the singer told her he had tortured another woman. He could face life in prison if convicted.

A 35-year-old woman who claimed to have supplied cocaine to Rick James testified Friday that the singer pushed her and broke her arm when she asked to be paid for the drug.

“He said I should just be glad that I’m partying with Rick James,” said Michelle Allen, who is serving a seven-year prison term on theft charges.

Allen’s testimony came in the San Fernando Superior Court trial of James, who is charged with 15 felony counts stemming from two separate incidents that allegedly occurred 17 months apart.

The charges include assault with a deadly weapon, aggravated mayhem, torture, forcible oral copulation, making terrorist threats, false imprisonment and kidnaping.

The first incident allegedly occurred in July, 1991, at the singer’s former home where a woman claimed that James tortured her with a hot knife and a cocaine pipe, then forced her to have oral sex with his girlfriend, Tanya Anne Hijazi.

In the second incident, a 34-year-old woman claimed that on Nov. 2, 1992, James and Hijazi invited her to their room at the St. James’s Club Hotel in West Hollywood and then beat her unconscious.

Hijazi was originally charged along with James in both cases, but earlier this month she agreed to plead guilty to a single count of assault with a deadly weapon in exchange for dismissal of all other charges. She is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 21 to four years in prison.

James, 45, best known for his 1981 hit song “Super Freak,” faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted of all charges.

In testimony Friday, Allen said that James told her on at least three occasions that he had sexually assaulted and tortured a woman in his former home in the Hollywood Hills, above Studio City.

“He said: ‘The bitch deserved it. She had it coming,’ ” said Allen. “I was thinking about (the victim), and I thought that would happen to me.”

James’ attorney, Mark J. Werksman, suggested that the woman fabricated the incident.

“What you have is a 15-time loser yanked out of prison on drug and theft charges trying to reduce her time,” Werksman said outside the courtroom.

Allen said that on Dec. 30, 1991, she went to James’ condominium in Marina del Rey to deliver a kilogram, or 2.2 pounds, of cocaine for which she was to be paid $16,000.

She said that while they waited for his bodyguards to get money from another location to pay her, she, James and Hijazi smoked cocaine and had sex throughout the night and early morning.

When she asked about the payment, James became belligerent and abusive, she said. When she tried to leave, she said James grabbed her from behind and threw her to the ground; she landed on her right wrist and broke her arm.

Allen said she later went to a hospital but gave a false name because there was a warrant for her arrest. She also told hospital officials that she had been injured in a fall so that they would not call police.

In November, 1992, after James and Hijazi were arrested and jailed for the second alleged incident, Hijazi was placed in a cell with Allen, who had been arrested on theft charges. Allen testified Friday that, while in jail, Hijazi also confessed to the two assaults.

Under cross-examination, Werksman suggested that Allen had gathered information about James from Hijazi while the two women were in jail together, and fabricated the broken arm story to help her gain a sentence reduction.

Allen said that she agreed to testify not because any promises were made by prosecutors, but because she said James has to be stopped from hurting other women.

“It just seemed like it kept going on, and it needed to be stopped,” she said. “How many women have to be hurt before something gets done here?”