According to recent news reports, a ‘Smoking Gun’ e-mail was revealed during a trial last week. The said e-mail allegedly connected the concert promoter, AEG Live, to the pop star’s death.
The said e-mail that was sent by AEG Live’s Co-CEO Paul Gongaware to the show director Kenny Ortega 11 days before MJ’s ‘This Is It’ comeback concert. In the email, the pop singer’s doctor Conrad Murray had kept the pop star from a scheduled rehearsal. In his own words which were quoted below, the Co-CEO said in his e-mail:
“We want to remind (Murray) that it is AEG, not MJ, who is paying his salary. We want to remind him what is expected of him.”
Subsequently, Ortega being “concerned” about MJ’s health after the pop icon showed up for rehearsal shivering just more than a week before his death, he claimed in another e-mail to AEG Live’s President Randy Phillips that:
“It is like there are two people there. One (deep inside) trying to hold on to what he was and still can be and not wanting us to quit him, the other in this weakened and troubled state. I believe we need professional guidance in this matter.”
In his response, Phillips wrote with a shining endorsement of Murray:
“This doctor is extremely successful (we check everyone out) and does not need this gig so he is totally unbiased and ethical.”
Apparently, based on their e-mail exchange, AEG Live’s personnel were directly involved with pressuring Murray to have MJ at rehearsals despite his fragile health, pointed out by the Jackson family’s lawyer.
The now controversial e-mail exchange was said to be sent by EAG Live’s tour accountant Timm Woolley to an insurance broker just a couple of days before MJ died.
During the investigation following MJ’s death, investigators reported that Murray admitted that he used the surgical anesthetic propofol each night for two months to help MJ to sleep in preparation for the concert rehearsals. In fact, the physician has been already sentenced to four years in jail by the Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor way back in February, 2012. Nevertheless, Murray is now on the witness list and is expected to testify in next month’s trial.
Incidentally, in a statement released by AEG Live last year, it claimed that it has no liability in the King of Pop’s death because Murray was not its employee. The show promoter even reiterated in its previous statement that it did not hire Murray nor was the company responsible for MJ’s death.
Additionally, reports revealed that AEG even asked the court to have the case against it to be dismissed but the Los Angeles County Superior Court dismissed its request. Also, the show promoter argued that it did not foresee that Murray might use dangerous drugs on MJ.
So far, during last week’s verdict, the court ruled that Jackson’s lawyers have exhibited enough evidence that EAG Live hired and supervised Murray to permit a jury trial. The court further ruled that the concert promoter could have foreseen that Murray would use dangerous drugs in treating the King of Pop. Consequently, a Los Angeles wrongful death lawyer herein speculated that the future trials would likely to be a good battle for MJ’s estate.
