LOS ANGELES
— The promoters of Michael Jackson's ill-fated comeback concerts
watched the singer waste away and should have reached out to his family
for help, the superstar's mother tearfully told a jury on Monday.
Clutching a tissue and hanging her head at times, Katherine Jackson
said she didn't know the extent of her son's weakness until after the
start of her trial against AEG Live LLC.
"They watched him waste away," she said after her attorney
cited several emails from top workers preparing for the "This Is It"
shows. The messages described her son's condition as deteriorating and
cited his inability to rehearse.
"They could have called me," Katherine Jackson, 83, said. "He was
asking me for his father. My grandson told me that his daddy was nervous
and scared."
Her comments came under questioning from her attorney, Brian Panish.
Moments earlier, an attorney for AEG Live had questioned why the
Jackson family matriarch _if her purpose for filing the lawsuit was to
find
out the truth about her son's death, as she had testified – hadn't read
through thousands of pages of deposition testimony, or asked her
grandchildren about what happened in her son's rented mansion before his
June 2009 death.
She later said that while she could have asked her grandchildren about some issues, she didn't want to bring it up with them.
She also said that she didn't see a photograph of her son shot six days before her his death until after the trial started.
Katherine Jackson at first didn't seem to want to look at the photo,
which has been repeatedly displayed during the trial and shows her son
wearing a T-shirt, his arms thin and bones visible in his upper chest.
Katherine Jackson claims AEG Live failed to properly investigate Dr.
Conrad Murray, who was later convicted of involuntary manslaughter for
giving the singer an overdose of the anesthetic propofol.
AEG
defense attorney
Marvin S. Putnam told jurors during opening statements in the
negligence lawsuit in April that the case centered on personal
responsibility – specifically Michael Jackson's decision to ask Murray
to administer propofol as a sleep aid while he prepared for his shows.
AEG Live denies it hired the doctor or bears any responsibility for Jackson's death.
Katherine Jackson said she believes AEG Live hired Murray, not her
son. She said she never heard of the cardiologist until her son died,
and indicated that she felt Murray bore responsibility for her son's
death.
"Even though he asked for it, he could have said no," she said of Murray.
Putnam also asked Katherine Jackson about her son's payments to her
over the years. She said he directly paid many of the expenses on her
home and would occasionally give her cash as a gift.
Saying she didn't keep track of the payments, Katherine Jackson appeared to being annoyed at the questions.
"What does this have to do with the death of my son," she asked Putnam.
The attorney also asked her about conversations she had with her son about prescription drug use.
She said she asked him about it when he lived in
Las Vegas and he denied he was abusing
prescription medications.
"I'm a mother, quite naturally he denied it," she said. "He wouldn't want me to think that."
She said she wasn't surprised by his denial and likened the situation
to a child who'd disobeyed his mother while playing outdoors.
Putnam said Jackson was a 50-year-old man at the time of his death.
"He's still my child," Katherine Jackson said. "He'd still want me to
hold his respect."
She said she was aware her son took medications for pain in his back
and scalp after he sustained injuries over his career. She said she
never saw signs that her son was abusing medications, including when she
and several of her children went to the singer's Neverland Ranch in
2002 for an intervention.
Her son was fine but upset that they thought he had a problem, she said.
___
Anthony McCartney can be reached at
http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP
