Jackson doctor gets 4-year sentence, judge’s ire

LOS ANGELES (AP) - It was clear that Michael Jackson’s doctor was going to get the maximum four-year sentence for involuntary manslaughter before the judge even finished speaking.

In a nearly half-hour tongue lashing, Dr. Conrad Murray was denounced as a greedy, remorseless physician who committed a “horrific violation of trust” and killed the King of Pop during an experiment.

“Dr. Murray created a set of circumstances and became involved in a cycle of horrible medicine,” Judge Michael Pastor said in a stern voice.

Pastor said Murray sold out his profession for a promised fee of $150,000 a month when he agreed to give Jackson a powerful anesthetic every night as an unorthodox cure for insomnia.

Murray will likely serve less than two years in county jail, not state prison, because of California’s overcrowded prisons and jails. Sheriff’s officials said he will be housed in a one-man cell and be kept away from other inmates.

The tall, imposing Murray, who has been in jail for three weeks, was allowed to change into street clothes _ a charcoal gray suit and white shirt _ for court. But he wore prison-issue white socks and soft slippers.

Jackson’s family said in a statement read in court that they were not seeking revenge but a stiff sentence for Murray that would serve as a warning to opportunistic doctors. Afterward, they said they were pleased with the judge’s sentence.

“We’re going to be a family. We’re going to move forward. We’re going to tour, play the music and miss him,” brother Jermaine Jackson said.

After sentencing, Murray mouthed the words “I love you” to his mother and girlfriend in the courtroom. Murray’s mother, Milta Rush, sat alone on a bench in the courthouse hallway.

“My son is not what they charged him to be,” she said quietly. “He was a gentle child from the time he was small.”

Of her son’s future, she said, “God is in charge.”

Murray, 58, was convicted after a six-week trial that presented the most detailed account yet of Jackson’s final hours, a story of the performer’s anguish over being unable to sleep.

Pastor was relentless in his bashing of Murray, saying the physician lied repeatedly and abandoned Jackson when he was at his most vulnerable _ under the anesthesia that Murray administered in an unorthodox effort to induce sleep.

“It should be made very clear that experimental medicine is not going to be tolerated, and Mr. Jackson was an experiment,” he said.

Propofol is supposed to be used in hospital settings and has never been approved for sleep treatments, yet Murray acknowledged giving it to Jackson then leaving the room on the day the singer died.

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