LOS ANGELES — Elvis had one. So did Anna Nicole Smith and Marilyn Monroe. They are the doctors who cater to celebrities with powerful painkillers and sedatives.
Now, as police investigate Michael Jackson’s death, questions are swirling around the King of Pop’s personal cardiologist — and any other doctors who might have cared for him in his final days.
Dr. Conrad Murray had apparently been living with Jackson for about two weeks and was with him when he stopped breathing Thursday. The doctor reportedly 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.
The cardiologist has hired a Houston-based law firm, and on Saturday, a lawyer there said Murray was cooperating.
“Dr. Murray has never left L.A. since Mr. Jackson’s death, and he remains there. Investigators have indicated Dr. Murray is considered a witness and is not in any way a target of any kind,” William M. Stradley told The Associated Press. He said his colleague was meeting with investigators Saturday.
Records reveal years of financial troubles for Murray, a 1989 graduate of Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tenn., who practices medicine in California, Nevada and Texas.
Over the past 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 in December with a nearly $3,700 judgment for failure to pay child support in San Diego and had his wages garnished for almost $1,500 by a credit card company.
Author Deepak Chopra, Jackson’s longtime friend, 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, a licensed medical doctor, 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 that she thought they were overmedicating him, and she even tried to stage an intervention with Chopra’s help, 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.
