Rumors are swirling around the possibility of manslaughter charges may be filed in the death of pop superstar Michael Jackson. Jackson’s personal doctor, Dr. Conrad Murray, is considered a “person of interest” in the case but has not been charged.
Raids at Dr. Murray’s office and storage unit in Houston on Wednesday raised eyebrows. Among the items removed from the storage unit by federal officials were notices from the IRS. You can read the entire list of items removed from the storage shed as evidence here, downloadable as a pdf.
Was Dr. Murray in some kind of trouble with the IRS? So far, there is no clear answer and the IRS does not comment on pending matters.
However, there has been speculation that Dr. Murray was in considerable financial difficulty. In addition to defaults in home loans and unpaid child support, there are at least three state tax liens which have been filed in Arizona and California against Dr. Murray, one as recently as 2003. Murray’s Nevada medical practice, Global Cardiovascular Associates, was ordered last year to pay court judgments totaling nearly half a million dollar to vendors and banks; at least two other lawsuits against the company are still pending.
Normally, no one would care about any of this. So the guy had some financial troubles, who cares? Apparently, the feds do. Speculation continues to build that Dr. Murray may have been involved in supplying Michael Jackson with unnecessary prescription drugs; if so, his activities may be linked to his financial troubles.
The doctor made headlines after it was revealed that he was the last person to be seen alive with Michael Jackson. Murray was considered to be Jackson’s full time personal doctor; he was hired by AEG Live to accompany Michael Jackson to London for his comeback series of concerts.
All of that said, why the feds would seize what would seem to be unrelated tax documents from Murray’s storage shed remains a mystery for now. I’ll update you as information becomes available.
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Excellent post, Kelley, as usual.
As you suggest, I think part of the government’s manslaughter case against Murray might be to prove why he would have given Jackson the prescriptions in the first place knowing how dangerous they were.
If he was in dire financial straits, he may have compromised his professional integrity just to make his rich client happy and get paid.
It’s going to be interesting to see how it all plays out.
In the meantime I’m gonna go power up Billie Jean for the umpteenth time.