LOS ANGELES, (Reuters) – Michael Jackson’s personal physician, Dr. Conrad Murray, yesterday was sentenced to four years in jail and denied probation for his conviction on a charge of involuntary manslaughter in the pop star’s death.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor gave Murray the maximum sentence and said he physician engaged in “money for medicine madness that is simply not acceptable to me.”
Murray, 58, dressed in a gray suit and purple paisley tie, sat emotionless through the sentencing. Just before being led out from the courtroom, he blew a kiss to an unidentified woman who shouted “we love you” to the convicted killer.
Outside the courtroom, Jackson’s mother Katherine, who daily attended Murray’s trial that started in late September and ended on Nov. 7, said “the judge was fair.”
“Four years is not enough for someone’s life. It won’t bring him (Jackson) back, but at least he (Murray) got the maximum” sentence, Katherine Jackson told reporters.
Yet, even though he was sentenced to four years in jail, Murray may spend only months behind bars due to extreme overcrowding in Los Angeles County where he will serve time.
He has 60 days to appeal the sentence.
“Thriller” singer Jackson, who rose to fame in the late 1960s and ‘70s as a member of the Jackson Five and had a stellar solo career in the 1980s, died of a drug overdose in June 2009, principally from the use of the surgical anesthetic propofol as a sleep aid. That drug had been obtained and administered to Jackson by Murray at the singer’s rented home.
A jury convicted Murray of involuntary manslaughter, or gross negligence, after witnesses testified propofol should not be administered at home and, if it is, must be given only with the proper life-monitoring equipment on hand. It was not.
Prosecutors painted a picture of Murray trying to cover-up evidence of propofol and lying to doctors about its use.
Murray’s defense claimed Jackson might have administered a fatal dose of the drug to himself, but the jury did not agree.
