Dr Conrad Murray
CALIFORNIA, United States – Conrad Murray, the Grenada-born, Trinidad-raised cardiologist convicted of accidentally killing pop icon Michael Jackson in 2009, was released from jail on Monday after serving two of his four years behind bars.
California’s recent efforts to alleviate inmate overcrowding are said to have led to Dr Murray’s release from a Los Angeles prison after serving about half of his sentence.
While the doctor’s future remains uncertain, spokespersons have said he intends to return to medicine, even though his medical licenses have been invalidated in all three states where he had been authorized to practice, according to a Reuters report.
The cardiologist’s return to the medical field is contingent on an appeal he has filed to overturn his conviction, but a California appellate court is still weighing whether it will even hear the case.
“He’s prepared to keep fighting this as long as it takes,” Valerie Wass, Murray’s attorney, told the news agency.
Other news reports have taken a more bizarre twist, with some claiming that the doctor plans to use his pseudo-celebrity status to pave his way into singing stardom.
“Murray thinks he can make it as a singer in the future,” Jeff Adams, Michael Jackson’s former bodyguard, told the New York Daily News.
Meanwhile, sources have told celebrity website TMZ that Murray is courting publishers to write a book about the time he spent with Jackson.
Accounts of bids for a career as a pop star and million-dollar book deals appear to be on the same page as Murray’s mind-boggling forays into the limelight during his incarceration.
In June, Murray called into CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360” and sang a personalized version of “The Little Boy That Santa Claus Forgot” on live TV. He also sent Jackson’s teenage daughter Paris a puzzling audio message in which he said he loved her as if she were his own daughter and sang her Jackson’s song “You Are Not Alone.”
Michael Jackson died in July 2009 amid preparations for “This Is It,” a series of high-profile comeback concerts scheduled to premiere in London. Suspicion quickly fell on Murray, whom concert promoter AEG Live had hired as the superstar’s personal physician.
Two years later, Murray was found to have given Jackson propofol as a sleep aid during the months leading up to his death. He was also found to have given the “king of pop” a dose of the medication hours before his death.
At trial, experts testified that propofol is a surgical sedative, not a sleep aid, and said that Murray had not monitored Jackson in accordance with the protocols for administering the powerful drug. On the morning Jackson’s died, Murray had left the superstar alone in bed with a propofol IV drip in his arm, prosecutors said.
Earlier this month, AEG Live was cleared in a civil suit brought by Jackson’s mother and children, accusing the company of negligently hiring Dr Murray.
The company successfully argued that it had been unaware of Jackson’s dependence on propofol and other sedatives when it signed on to manage Jackson’s concert series and hired a personal doctor for him.
