A judge on Tuesday ordered Michael Jackson’s personal doctor to stand trial on involuntary manslaughter charges for allegedly killing the singer with an overdose of powerful sedatives.
Conrad Murray, who claims he was just treating the pop icon for insomnia when he died in June 2009, also had his license to practice medicine in California suspended.
The doctor will be arraigned on Jan. 25, the Los Angeles Superior Court judge ruled after six days of hearings, which heard evidence that Murray tried to cover having given Jackson an overdose of the drug propofol.
Murray, who was born in Grenada and raised in Trinidad before he moved to the US, could face up to four years in jail and lose his doctor’s license if the case goes to full trial and he is convicted.
Prosecutors claimed his defense team would argue that Jackson effectively killed himself by administering an extra dose of propofol while Murray was out of the room, although the defense had not commented on this.
They alleged that Murray, 57, “abandoned his patient” after administering the propofol some time between 10:40am and 11am to help Jackson sleep, and then tried to cover it up after the singer’s death.
Tuesday’s widely expected ruling came shortly after a forensic expert testified that Jackson’s death was homicide, saying the singer was in generally good health when he died on June 25, 2009, at his LA mansion.
Christopher Rogers, head of forensic medicine for the Los Angeles County coroner’s office, said the star died of acute intoxication with propofol, which is usually used as an anesthetic in hospital settings.
He said he would describe Jackson’s death as homicide even if, as claimed by Murray, the singer had himself administered an extra dose of propofol while the doctor was out of the room.
Last week the pre-trial hearings heard from a series of witnesses who testified that Murray delayed calling 911, tried to conceal what drugs he had administered and did not know how to carry out emergency resuscitation.
Paramedic Martin Blount said that when he arrived Jackson seemed to have been dead for at least 20 minutes, despite Murray’s claim that he had stopped breathing a minute before they were called.
He added that Murray initially denied having given Jackson any medications, but said he saw the doctor holding a needle and spotted three bottles of the anesthetic lidocaine on the floor.
On Friday, investigator Elissa Fleak said she found 12 vials of propofol in Jackson’s house after he died, while a pharmacist testified on Monday that he supplied 255 vials of the drug to Murray in the two months before his death.
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