AEG Live CEO Paul Gongaware dropped a bombshell last week in the Michael Jackson wrongful death trial when he admitted that he wrote an email indicating that his promotion company was paying for the performer’s doctor.
The message, written to a tour director, read, ”We want to remind [Jackson's doctor Conrad Murray] that it is AEG, not MJ, who is paying his salary. We want to remind him what is expected of him.”
The Jackson family is litigating with AEG over whether the promoters put undue pressure on Murray to keep the singer in performance shape. Jackson passed away in 2009 after the doctor gave him an overdose of the anesthetic he used to sleep at night, for which Murray was convicted of manslaughter in 2011.
During the trial, AEG has consistently maintained that Jackson picked Murray to be his doctor and the company would merely be fronting his salary out of Jackson’s expected take for the planned “This Is It” tour extravaganza.
A Smoking Gun
Gongaware spent much of the week asserting that he didn’t recall writing any of the messages that came from his email account, but finally under questioning conceded that he wrote what the Jackson family considers the smoking gun in the trial.
The admission could potentially sink AEG’s entire defense. “This past week, it appears to me that the testimony and email presented by the Jackson family attorneys strongly suggest that AEG did in fact control Dr. Murray’s actions,” says Lisa M. Wilson, a partner with Los Angeles-area personal injury firm Jackson & Wilson. “That’s going to be tough for the defense to get around.”
The promotion company might have already blown its credibility with seemingly deceptive tactics. “Sure, AEG may argue that Gongaware was incorrect and didn’t know all the facts when he wrote this email, but as the Co-CEO of the company, such an argument may not be too persuasive to the jury,” Wilson says. “I say this after learning that it was reported that several jurors laughed when Gongaware, while testifying under oath, repeatedly stated that he ‘didn’t recall’ writing the emails he was being shown. Trust and credibility are key to winning trials and the laughing response by some of the jurors would seem to indicate doubt and mistrust about Gongaware’s testimony.”
Elvis Has Left the Building
Also last week Gongaware flip-flopped over the cause of Elvis Presley’s death. Gongaware had been Elvis’ promoter in 1977 and sent out an email after Jackson’s overdose that read “I was working on the Elvis tour when he died so I kind of knew what to expect. Still quite a shock.”
When initially asked last week, the promoter said that Elvis died of a drug overdose. Later when asked by his own attorney, he revised his statement and claimed it was heart failure. The public won’t know for sure what killed the King until his autopsy is unsealed in 2027, but it is widely thought that he had a heart arrhythmia brought on by excessive drug use.
Gongaware claimed on the stand that the email referred to the trauma of concert employees losing their jobs because the famous singers’ respective tours were cancelled once they died.
It’s unclear how relevant the jury will find the Elvis testimony. “By itself, it doesn’t seem to bear much relevance to the facts in Jackson’s case,” says Wilson. “However, when considered with the previous testimony elicited from Gongaware, Jacksons’ attorneys may be able to sell the jury on the idea that this is a promoter who is willing to do whatever is necessary to ensure that the show goes on.”
READ MORE: http://blogs.lawyers.com/2013/06/aeg-paid-michael-jacksons-doctor/
Source: Lawyers.com / MJ-Upbeat.com
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