AEG Live to put Micheal Jackson on trial in own death.

 

Michael Jackson’s last concert promoter will defend itself in a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the pop icon’s family by arguing that Jackson was responsible for his own demise.

Child molestation accusations against Jackson, for which he was acquitted after a trial, and evidence of his drug addiction will likely be presented by AEG Live’s lawyers as they argue that the company had no liability in his death.

The Jackson v. AEG Live trial, which could last two or three months, begins in a Los Angeles courtroom Tuesday.

Jackson died two weeks before his “This Is It” comeback concerts, organized by AEG Live, were to have debuted in London in the summer of 2009.

“I don’t know how you can’t look to Mr. Jackson’s responsibility there,” AEG lawyer Marvin Putnam said. “He was a grown man.”

Putnam was interviewed for “Michael Jackson: The Final Days,” a CNN documentary that will premiere at 10 p.m. Friday.

“Mr. Jackson is a person who was known to doctor shop,” Putnam said. “He was known to be someone who would tell one doctor one thing and another doctor something else.”

The child molestation trial is relevant because it “resulted in an incredible increase in his drug intake,” Putnam said.

The wrongful death trial, which could last several months, is expected to include testimony from Jackson’s mother and his two oldest children, Prince and Paris.

“We’re talking about Michael Jackson,” Putnam said. “This is a man who would show up in pajamas. This is a man who would stop traffic and get out and dance on top of his car. This is a man who would go to public events with a monkey named Bubbles. This is a man who said he slept in an oxygen chamber.”

Lawyers for Jackson’s mother, Katherine, and children, Prince, Paris and Blanket, argue that AEG Live is liable because the company hired and supervised Dr. Conrad Murray, who used a surgical anesthetic in a fatal effort to treat the singer’s insomnia as he prepared for the comeback concerts.

The Trial judge thinks Jackson may have a case because the Jackson lawyers had provided evidence that AEG Live didn’t do “a sufficient background check of Dr. Murray, which would have established that Murray was deeply in debt.”

MJ's family is likely to win billions of dollars if they win the lawsuit.