M. Jackson's Doctor Debt-Ridden & Needed Money, Owed $400,000. In Court Judgments

MSNBC----

Could Jackson's doctor be charged with contributing to his mysterious, premature death?

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Spiritual Adviser Deepak Chopra speaks of his friendship with Michael Jackson and having previously warned Michael about his prescription drug habit.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

LOS ANGELES - Elvis had one. So did Anna Nicole Smith and Marilyn Monroe. They are the doctors who cater to celebrities, dispensing powerful painkillers and sedatives to some of Hollywood's best-known entertainers.

Now, as police investigate Michael Jackson's sudden death, questions are swirling around the King of Pop's personal cardiologist and his actions in the superstar's final days.

Dr. Conrad Murray reportedly was with Jackson when he stopped breathing Thursday and performed CPR until paramedics arrived. An ambulance crew worked on Jackson at his home for 42 minutes before rushing him to UCLA Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

Los Angeles police on Saturday again interviewed Murray in the presence of a lawyer from a Houston-based law firm hired by the cardiologist. A spokeswoman for Murray, Miranda Sevcik, said in a statement late Saturday that Murray had "clarified some inconsistencies" surrounding Jackson's death.

"Dr. Murray has been in Los Angeles since the death of Mr. Jackson," the statement said. "He rode in the ambulance to the hospital and stayed at the hospital for hours comforting and consoling the Jackson family. Investigators say the doctor is in no way a suspect and remains a witness to this tragedy."

Also on Saturday, the Rev. Jesse Jackson said the singer's family wants a private autopsy because of unanswered questions about how he died and about Murray.

And Jackson's longtime friend Deepak Chopra said he's been concerned since 2005 that physicians were over medicating the singer.

The suspicions of Jackson's friends and family fit into a long-standing pattern of celebrity doctors becoming entangled in death investigations involving prescription drugs.

Allure of the celebrity lifestyle:

Doctors can become enchanted by the glamour of the celebrity lifestyle and may find it hard to refuse potent painkillers for their clients because of their wealth and power.

"It's a big issue with people who are used to getting what they want. And if someone says no, they can pay someone else to get what they want," said Karen Sternheimer, a sociologist at the University of Southern California who is writing a book on social problems and celebrity culture.

"The physician is not immune to that heady feeling of being in a celebrity's inner circle."

In other instances, the doctors themselves may have questionable pasts or significant debts, and caring for a celebrity allows them to make large amounts of money, said Julie Albright, a sociologist at the University of Southern California.

"Some of these people might not be the most successful doctors, so the money will also buy their complicity in fueling a drug habit," said Albright, who was speaking generally and not specifically about Murray.

Records reveal years of financial troubles for Murray, a 1989 graduate of Meharry Medical College in Nashville who practices medicine in California, Nevada and Texas.

Over the last 18 months, Murray's Nevada medical practice, Global Cardiovascular Associates, has been slapped with more than $400,000 in court judgments: $228,000 to Citicorp Vendor Finance Inc., $71,000 to an education loan company and $135,000 to a leasing company. He faces at least two other pending cases.

Court records show Murray was hit last December with a nearly $3,700 judgment for failure to pay child support in San Diego, and had his wages garnished the same month for almost $1,500 by a credit card company. Another credit card claim for more than $1,100 filed in April remains open.

He also owes $940 in fines and penalties for driving with an expired license plate and for not having proof of insurance in 2000.

I was kind of a bit alarmed:

Best-selling author Deepak Chopra, a longtime friend of Michael Jackson and a licensed medical doctor, said he first became concerned about the pop star's prescription drug use in 2005, when Jackson visited him shortly after his trial on sex abuse allegations.

Chopra said Jackson asked him to prescribe painkillers and already had a bottle of Oxycontin.

"I was kind of a bit alarmed. I said, 'Why are you taking that. You don't need that,' and then I started to probe a little further, and after I grilled him a little bit, he admitted he was getting them from a bunch of doctors," Chopra said.

Chopra said he refused to prescribe the medicine, but over the next four years the nanny of Jackson's children would periodically call to say that a parade of doctors was coming to his homes in Santa Barbara County, Los Angeles, Miami and New York City.

She told Chopra she felt they were overmedicating him, and one time she even tried to stage an intervention with Chopra's help, he said.

Each time, Jackson would discover the nanny's calls and then shut himself off from Chopra to avoid discussing the issue, he said.

Chopra, a spiritual adviser, said he last talked to Jackson directly about his drug use about six months ago and spoke with him on the phone about two weeks before his death.

But they did not discuss drug use on that call, and Chopra said in his final months, Jackson seemed much healthier and excited about his upcoming concerts in London.

"This is a strange addiction. You cannot get these pills or injections unless a physician prescribes them, and he had this bunch of enabling doctors who were in a sense criminals. And they get away with it half the time — and I hope they don't this time," he said.

"It's become a culture with celebrity doctors who in one sense get a sense of importance by hanging around with celebrities."

Like a moth to a flame:

Marilyn Monroe died at 36 from an overdose of sleeping pills in August 1962. She had been under a doctor's care at the time.

Elvis Presley, who died in 1977 at 42, was known to travel with George Nichopoulos, a former physician who overprescribed drugs to clients. Nichopoulos lost his medical license but was acquitted of criminal charges related to Elvis' death.

More recently, Los Angeles County prosecutors charged a psychiatrist and a doctor with conspiring to provide Anna Nicole Smith with thousands of prescription pills.

Smith died Feb. 8, 2007, in Florida after collapsing at a hotel; medical authorities later ruled her death an overdose.

Megastars may be given more leeway than ordinary patients because of their wealth — and because of expectations that the famous often have eccentric habits, said Albright, the sociologist.

"It's almost expected in some ways if it's a rock star or a big actor. You almost expect them to have a larger-than-life lifestyle," she said. "People are drawn to celebrity like a moth to a flame, including these doctors who want to be around that lightness and brightness."

Sources: MSNBC, Countdown with Keith Olbermann

Michael Jackson's Cardiologist Should Be Charged With Malpractice & Manslaughter! Legalized Drug Pusher!

MSNBC----

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

LOS ANGELES - The final act of Michael Jackson's life has come into clearer focus, a picture of a fallen superstar working out with TV's "Incredible Hulk" and under the care of his own private cardiologist as he tried to get his 50-year-old body in shape for a grueling bid to reclaim his glory.

While the exact circumstances of his death remained unclear, the Los Angeles County coroner's office said there were no signs of foul play or trauma.

Ed Winter of the coroner's office told reporters Friday night that Jackson's body had been transported to a mortuary at around 9:15 p.m. PDT.

Jackson's remains had been "moved to an undisclosed location per a family privacy request. There is also a security hold and so I can't discuss the location," Winter said.

The autopsy was completed in a matter of hours, but an official cause of death could take up to six weeks while medical examiners await toxicology tests. No funeral plans have been made public.

Jackson's brother Jermaine has said the pop singer apparently went into cardiac arrest on Thursday, leading to his death.

Craig Harvey, a spokesman for the coroner, said earlier that further tests would be needed to determine the cause of death. He said Jackson was taking some unspecified prescription medication but gave few other details.

Police said they had towed the doctor's BMW from Jackson's home because it may include medication or other evidence.

Authorities said they spoke with Jackson's private doctor briefly Thursday and Friday and expected to meet with him again soon. Police stressed that the doctor, identified by the Los Angeles Times as Cardiologist Conrad Murray, was not a criminal suspect.

"We do not consider him to be uncooperative at this time," said police Deputy Chief Charlie Beck said. "We think that he will assist us in coming to the truth of the facts in this case."

As grief for the King of Pop poured out from the icons of music to heartbroken fans, and the world came to grips with losing one of the most luminous celebrities of all time, an autopsy showed no sign of trauma or foul play to Jackson, who died Thursday at UCLA Medical Center after paramedics not could not revive him.

Desperate 911 call:

Meanwhile, an emergency dispatch call released by fire officials shed light on the desperate effort at the mansion to save Jackson's life before paramedics arrived Thursday afternoon. Jackson died later at UCLA Medical Center.

In the recording, an unidentified caller pleads with authorities to send help, offering no clues about why Jackson was stricken. He tells a dispatcher that Jackson's doctor is performing CPR.

"He's pumping his chest," the caller says, "but he's not responding to anything."

Asked by the dispatcher whether anyone saw what happened, the caller answers: "No, just the doctor, sir. The doctor has been the only one there."

The president of the company promoting Jackson's shows said Murray was Jackson's personal physician for three years. Jackson insisted Murray accompany him to London, said Randy Phillips, president of AEG Live.

Phillips quoted Jackson as saying: "Look, this whole business revolves around me. I'm a machine, and we have to keep the machine well-oiled." Phillips said Jackson submitted to at least five hours of physicals that insurers had insisted on.

Jackson had remained out of the public spotlight during intense rehearsals for the London concerts, but those with access said he was upbeat and seemingly energized by his planned comeback. Ken Ehrlich, executive producer of the Grammys, said he watched Jackson dance energetically as recently as Wednesday.

"There was this one moment, he was moving across the stage and he was doing these trademark Michael moves, and I know I got this big grin on my face, and I started thinking to myself, 'You know, it's been years since I've seen that,'" he said.

Lou Ferrigno, the star of "The Incredible Hulk," said he had been working out with Jackson for the past several months.

Precarious health:

Still, Jackson's health had been known to be precarious in recent years, and one family friend said Friday that he had warned the entertainer's family about his use of painkillers.

"I said one day we're going to have this experience. And when Anna Nicole Smith passed away, I said we cannot have this kind of thing with Michael Jackson," Brian Oxman, a former Jackson attorney and family friend, told NBC's TODAY. "The result was I warned everyone, and lo and behold, here we are. I don't know what caused his death. But I feared this day, and here we are."

Oxman claimed Jackson had prescription drugs at his disposal to help with pain suffered when he broke his leg after he fell off a stage and for broken vertebrae in his back.

The worldwide wave of mourning for Jackson continued unabated for the man who revolutionized pop music and moonwalked his way into entertainment legend.

"My heart, my mind are broken," said Elizabeth Taylor, who was one of Jackson's closest friends and married one of her husbands at a lavish wedding at the pop star's Neverland Ranch in 1991. She said she had heard the news as she was preparing to travel to London for Jackson's comeback show, and added, "I can't imagine life without him."

Tributes:

Hundreds made a pilgrimage to the Jackson family's compound in Los Angeles, leaving flowers and messages of love. They did the same at his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and at the home in Los Angeles' Holmby Hills where Jackson was stricken. Some camped out overnight.

In New York, people stopped at Harlem's Apollo Theater, where Jackson had performed as a child with his brothers in one of rock's first bubblegum supergroups, the Jackson 5.

Diana Ross, the former lead singer of the Supremes who introduced the Jackson 5 at their debut on "The Ed Sullivan Show" in 1969, said she could not stop crying. "I am unable to imagine this," she said. "My heart is hurting."

His two ex-wives both said they were devastated. One of them, Lisa Marie Presley, posted a long, emotional statement on her MySpace page in which she said her ex-husband had confided to her 14 years ago that he feared dying young and under tragic circumstances, just as her father, Elvis Presley, had.

"I promptly tried to deter him from the idea, at which point he just shrugged his shoulders and nodded almost matter of fact as if to let me know, he knew what he knew and that was kind of that," Presley said.

Presley's father, the King of Rock 'n' Roll to Jackson's King of Pop, died in 1977 at age 42 of a drug-related death.

The White House also weighed in for the first time, with a spokesman saying President Barack Obama saw Jackson as a spectacular performer and music icon whose life nonetheless had sad and tragic aspects. The House of Representatives observed a moment of silence.

At rehearsals for Sunday's Black Entertainment Awards show, stars like Beyonce, Wyclef Jean and Ne-Yo were frantically revamping their performances in an effort to turn the evening into a Michael Jackson tribute.

Taking a toll:

When he was on trial on child molestation charges in 2005, Jackson appeared gaunt and had recurring back problems that he attributed to stress. His trial was interrupted several times by hospital visits, and Jackson once even appeared late to court dressed in his pajamas after an emergency room visit.

After his acquittal, Jackson's prosecutor argued against returning some items that had been seized from Neverland, the Santa Barbara County estate Jackson had converted into a children's playland. Among the items were syringes, the powerful painkiller Demerol and other prescription drugs.

Demerol carries a long list of warnings to users. The government warns that mixing it with certain other drugs can lead to reactions including slowed or stopped breathing, shock and cardiac arrest.


View Larger Map

Sources: MSNBC, Google Maps