Dr. Conrad Murray reacts after the jury returns with a guilty verdict in his involuntary manslaughter trial Monday, Nov. 7, 2011 in a Los Angeles courtroom. Photo / AP
Michael Jackson's doctor Conrad Murray has been sentenced to four years in prison for the manslaughter of the King of Pop in 2009.
"He has absolutely no sense of remorse,'' said judge Michael Pastor, after giving a scathing summary of the case against the 58-year-old doctor, found guilty of involuntary manslaughter.
Members of Jackson's family including siblings La Toya, Jermaine and Randy, were in the Los Angeles courtroom to hear the sentence for Murray, convicted of involuntary manslaughter on November 7.
La Toya Jackson tweeted beforehand that she hoped Murray gets at least four years.
"Hoping that Murray gets what he deserve, THE MAXIMUM PLUS!!!!" she wrote on Twitter, while Randy Jackson gave a "V" for victory sign as he entered the court building.
The sentencing judge called Murray a "danger to the community" as he imposed the maximum sentence possible.
Prosecutors had wanted Murray to get the maximum jail term and be ordered to compensate the Jackson family for the singer's loss of earnings, estimated at $100 million for the comeback shows he was preparing when he died.
But Ed Chernoff, the lawyer for the 58-year-old doctor, asked in submissions to court last week for his client to be given parole and community service, underlining that he will likely never practice medicine again.
Murray's mother Milta Rush also pleaded with the judge for leniency. "I am ... scared and worried sick about him being incarcerated .. He is saddened and remorseful about the death of his friend Michael Jackson.
"I do believe he is certainly learning the toughest lesson of his life," she wrote, in a letter published by celebrity website TMZ on Monday.
Murray was found guilty three weeks ago for giving Jackson an overdose of the anesthetic propofol on June 25, 2009 at the star's plush Holmby Hills mansion. The drug was purportedly to help the singer fight chronic insomnia.
Jackson, aged 50 at the time of his death, had hired Murray at a salary of $150,000 a month to look after him as he rehearsed and embarked on a series of planned comeback shows in London.
During the trial, the court heard a two-hour police interview with Murray in which he recounted the star's final days and hours, and claimed he found Jackson lifeless after leaving his bedside for only two minutes.
But it also heard evidence that Murray was on the phone with a series of girlfriends at the crucial time Jackson was on his deathbed, and that he delayed calling 911 and failed to tell paramedics what he had given the star.
A seven-man, five-woman jury took barely a day to reach a guilty verdict. Minutes after the verdict was read out, Murray was ignominiously handcuffed as judge Michael Pastor remanded him in custody pending sentencing.
Murray chose not to testify himself during the trial - experts suggested he would have been ripped to pieces by prosecutor David Walgren, who had already comprehensively dismantled the defence case.
But days after his conviction it emerged that he had given media interviews during the closing weeks of the trial for a documentary which was screened in the United States and Britain on which he collaborated.
That could weigh against him with judge Pastor, and Walgren said the TV interviews back up his assertion that Murray "displayed a complete lack of remorse for causing Michael Jackson's death."
"Even worse than failing to accept even the slightest level of responsibility, the defendant has placed blame on everyone else, including the one person no longer here to defend himself, Michael Jackson," he wrote.
- AFP
No comments:
Post a Comment