AP Photo/Houston Chronicle, Pool PhotographerNo one is going to London anymore, but Dr. Conrad Murray says he's owed plenty just for coming to California.
A lawyer for the cardiologist, who was hired by Michael Jackson's camp to accompany the artist's entourage overseas for his 50-show concert engagement, told E! News that promoter AEG Live owes him $300,000 for the eight weeks of work he put in as Jackson's personal doc.
"We don't know the exact terms of the contract with AEG," said Miranda Sevcik, spokeswoman for the law firm of Stradley, Chernoff & Alford, which has been representing Murray in his dealings with authorities since Jackson's death.
But legal action is a possibility if AEG persists in not paying, Sevcik told E! News. "If it comes to that, it comes to that," she said.
AEG Live CEO Randy Phillips said last week that Murray's salary was to be $150,000 per month and that they advanced Jackson the money, chalking it up to a production cost, but that it was Jackson's responsibility to do direct financial business with the doc.
Attorney Edward Chernoff said that Murray, who discovered Jackson unconscious in the bedroom of his Holmby Hills mansion and attempted unsuccessfully to resuscitate him before paramedics arrived, has been fully cooperative with the LAPD's investigation into the circumstances of the singer's death and that Murray is not considered a suspect.
Meanwhile, Murray isn't the only one who thinks AEG Live should put its money where its proverbial mouth is.
L.A. City Councilman Dennis Zine said Thursday that he thinks the entertainment conglomerate should cover some of the tab for what it cost the city to police the Jackson memorial at AEG Live-owned Staples Center on Tuesday.
City taxpayers are "being ripped off," Zine told L.A.'s KTTV, because AEG turned a profit by charging members of the media to set up risers outside the arena.
AEG president Tim Leiweke, whose company shared the cost of the memorial itself with the Jackson family, has called Zine's demand out of line, pointing out that AEG has been instrumental in soliciting donations to lessen the civic blow.
"But I'm always wary of the man that wants to get on top of a casket on the day of the funeral, and I think that's totally disrespectful, and shame on Dennis Zine for doing it," Leiweke told KCBS-TV Tuesday. "And I'm not going to comment about that anymore, but to pay the man respect today on the day of his funeral. This shouldn't even be a topic."
As of 5:15 p.m. Wednesday, the city had received more than 10,000 donations totaling $21,225, according to a city council spokeswoman.
The LAPD has said that approximately $1.1 million was spent on overtime alone between July 2 and July 8 to have an increased presence around Staples Center, Forest Lawn cemetery in the Hollywood Hills, the Jackson family's Encino estate, Michael's Holmby Hills residence and UCLA Medical Center.