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| FILE - This March 5, 2009 file photo shows singer Michael Jackson announcing his concerts at the London O2 Arena. Jackson's words and music rang through a courtroom once again on Monday, April 29, 2013, this time at the start of wrongful death trial, as a lawyer tried to show jurors the pop singer's loving relationship with his mother and children. |
LOS ANGELES
(AP) -- Jurors in the civil case between Michael Jackson's mother and
concert giant AEG Live got another glimpse of the singer's private life
on Tuesday through the eyes of a paramedic who described the singer's
bedroom and the frantic efforts to revive the King of Pop on the day he
died.
Many other private moments from the
singer's life will be exposed as the case progresses over the next
several months, with witnesses expected to testify about secret medical
treatments, lavish spending and tender moments spent with his mother and
children.
In the nearly four years since his
death, nearly every aspect of Jackson's life has been explored in court
proceedings, documentaries, books and news stories.
Still,
the negligence case filed by his mother against AEG promises to deliver
the most detailed account of the singer's addiction struggles,
including testimony from his ex-wife Debbie Rowe about treatments
involving the anesthetic propofol dating back to the 1990s.
Jackson died from a propofol overdose in 2009 while preparing for a series of comeback concerts at AEG's O2 Arena in London.
Katherine
Jackson contends AEG didn't properly investigate the doctor who later
administered the fatal dose. The company denies wrongdoing.
During opening statements, attorneys framed Jackson's prescription drug addiction through the prism of his superstar status.
Attorney
Brian Panish, who represents Katherine Jackson, said the drug problems
worsened when the pop
star was under the stress of live performances.
AEG
attorney Marvin S. Putnam countered that Jackson's stardom provided a
cover to receive multiple, secret medical treatments, many involving
propofol.
At one point in the proceedings, the
harsh portrayal of Jackson's struggle with addiction led one juror to
lean forward and stare at the floor for several moments.
Katherine
Jackson and two of the superstar's children, Prince and Paris, are
potential witnesses whose testimony would likely focus heavily on their
grieving and losses.
Panish played a song
Jackson wrote for his children as a montage of photos played during
opening statements. He also read a handwritten note from Jackson that
his mother framed and has hanging on her wall.
"The
only way you can assess damages, is to know what they had," Panish told
jurors Monday before reading the letter and playing "You Are My Life."
Katherine
Jackson dabbed her eyes with a tissue. On Tuesday, she left the
courtroom while the paramedic described her son's condition on the day
he died.
It may be several days before jurors get another look at Jackson's softer side.
The
trial will also feature testimony about Jackson's troubled finances,
with debts that reached nearly $400 million by the time he died.
AEG contends the debts made him desperate to have a successful concert series.
"The
private Michael Jackson was like a lot of American in the 2000s,
spending a lot more than he was making," Putnam told the jury after
describing the singer's lavish Neverland Ranch, his art collection and
other spending.
A Los Angeles police detective
who investigated Jackson's doctor, Conrad Murray, told jurors Tuesday
the physician was more than $500,000 in debt and may have been motivated
by a large payday for working with Jackson.
Detective
Orlando Martinez testified that he looked into Murray's finances
searching for a financial motive for his role in Jackson's death and
relied mostly on public records. He turned up that Murray's Las Vegas
home was in foreclosure proceedings, and Murray faced several liens for
unpaid child support and other unpaid debts.
The searches led Martinez to conclude that Murray's financial condition was "severely distressed."
Martinez said that led him to believe Murray's actions were motivated by the $150,000 a month he expected to be paid by AEG.
"He
may break the rules, bend the rules, do whatever he needed to do to get
paid," Martinez said. "It might solve his money problems."
Murray's
finances were not a factor in the criminal case that ended with his
2011 conviction for administering a fatal dose of propofol to Jackson.
Martinez
also showed jurors photographs the various medications officers
uncovered in Jackson's bedroom, including several vials of propofol.
With
the start of testimony Tuesday, the panel was transported by paramedic
Richard Senneff into the singer's bedroom, a place he kept locked and
where his propofol treatments were administered out of sight of everyone
but Murray.
Senneff, a paramedic and
firefighter for nearly 28 years, told the panel about responding to
Jackson's bedroom on June 25, 2009, and finding an unusual scene.
He described Murray's frazzled efforts to revive Jackson.
"He was pale, he was sweaty," the paramedic said of Murray. "He was very busy."
He said Jackson appeared to be terminally ill.
"To
me, he looked like someone who was at the end stage of a long disease
process," Senneff said, adding that Murray told him that he was treating
Jackson for dehydration.
Senneff told the panel he found an IV pole, oxygen tanks and a nightstand with several medicine bottles.
Just as he previously testified in Murray's criminal trial, the paramedic told the panel that Murray never mentioned propofol.
Jackson's
blue hands, feet and lips, and the singer's dry eyes all signaled to
Senneff that the singer was dead and hadn't been breathing for a long
time.
Onlookers and paparazzi were already
gathering at Jackson's gate and someone pressed a camera to the
ambulance window to get pictures of the stricken star.
