Arts & Entertainment

Hermosa Beach Executive Testifies in Michael Jackson Trial

By Bill Hetherman
City News Service

Testifying for the third day in trial of a negligence/wrongful death lawsuit against AEG Live over Michael Jackson's death, a company executive said today he was sad when he heard the singer had died in the midst of rehearsing for a tour and considered the pop star "a business associate."

Paul Gongaware, co-chief executive officer of Concerts West, a division of AEG Live, said he was at home in Hermosa Beach on June 25, 2009, when he was told of Jackson's death by AEG Live President and Chief Executive Officer Brandon Phillips.

Phillips had initially gone to Jackson's rented Holmby Hills home when he heard there was a problem with the singer, then followed the ambulance as it took the 50-year-old entertainer to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, Gongaware said.

Asked by the Jackson family's attorney if he was "sad" when he received the news of Jackson's drug overdose death, Gongaware answered, "Very much so."Jackson was a "business associate," Gongaware testified. "We did business together; we were very friendly."

Gongaware said the revenue generated by the quick sellouts of Jackson's 50 concert dates in London was in the tens of millions of dollars. He said the money was temporarily held by either the ticketing company or the O2 Arena, the host venue.

Gongaware said Jackson was as famous or more so than other artists who have performed in contract with AEG Live. Jackson would have reaped his share of the financial benefits from the "This Is It Tour," Gongaware said.

"If he was willing to work, he would have done well," Gongaware said.Lawyers for 83-year-old Katherine Jackson, who filed the lawsuit in 2010 on behalf of herself and her late son's three children, allege that AEG Live hired Dr. Conrad Murray to care for the singer and failed to supervise him properly.

AEG Live attorneys maintain that Jackson hired Murray in 2006 as his personal physician and chose him to be his doctor during his "This Is It Tour" as part of an independent contractor arrangement.

Murray was convicted in 2011 of involuntary manslaughter in Jackson's death and sentenced to four years in jail. The doctor gave the powerful anesthetic propofol to the singer as a sleep aid.


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