Michael Jackson Employee: Murray Halted CPR to Stash Drug Bottles

Alberto Alvarez told investigators that Dr. Conrad Murray didn't tell him to call 911 until he had bagged up several drug vials

Yikes.

Michael Jackson's private physician, Conrad Murray, was performing CPR on the dying pop star but stopped to gather up various drug vials, according to an account given to investigators by a Jackson employee called to his boss's room while Murray was working on him.

Per court documents released Monday, logistics director Alberto Alvarez told authorities that he went into Jackson's room and witnessed a disturbing scene: Jackson lying there, eyes open but not moving, exhibiting no signs of life, an IV sticking out of his leg.

Murray was frantically trying to resuscitate Jackson, Alvarez said, according to the filing, but didn't tell him to call paramedics until the vials had been stashed away.

As far as the prosecutors who want to convict Murray of manslaughter are concerned, this is damning info, but the doc's attorney is already raring to tear Alvarez's statement to pieces.

"We note that this statement was given more than two months after Michael Jackson's death and is inconsistent with a statement he gave the police the day after Mr. Jackson was taken to the hospital," attorney Edward Chernoff said in a statement to E! News, noting that Alvarez was interviewed twice by police

"Further, his statement does not match up with much of the physical evidence found at the scene. The defense would caution against putting too much emphasis on statements leaked by law enforcement or the district attorney's office. These leaks provided are piecemeal and are timed for effect.

"Since Dr. Murray's next court hearing is scheduled 10 days, we expect more leaks," Chernoff continued. "However, we will not be trying this case in the press. We would ask the public to reserve judgment until after the people's witnesses are placed under oath and subjected to the rigors of cross-examination. We are confident that a fair trial will ferret out the truth."

The medical examiner ultimately ruled Jackson's death a homicide caused by acute propofol intoxication, part of a lethal cocktail of sedatives and other drugs in his system.

Alvarez said that he arrived at the Jackson home for work at 10:30 a.m. and, at 12:17 p.m., got a call from Jackson's personal assistant, Michael Amir Williams, telling him that something was wrong with the King of Pop.

When he asked Murray what was wrong, Alvarez said, the doctor told him, "He had a reaction. He had a bad reaction."

At one point, Jackson's two eldest children came into the room and saw what was going on before a nanny ushered them away, Alvarez said.

While Murray was performing CPR when Alvarez got into the room, the employee told investigators that the cardiologist then briefly stopped, grabbed a few rubber-topped drug vials and gave them to Alvarez, telling him to put them in a bag. Alvarez said that he put them in a plastic bag he grabbed off the floor, after which Murray directed him to put that bag in a brown canvas bag.

According to Alvarez's account, Murray then told him to take the IV bag (which, Alvarez said, contained a milky white liquid) and to put that in a blue canvas bag.

A 911 call was made from the Holmby Hills house at 12:21 p.m. on June 25. Jackson was pronounced dead at UCLA Medical Center at 2:26 p.m.

In the days following Jackson's death, a bag of sedatives, including the milky white propofol, were discovered by investigators, with Murray's direction, in a closet in Jackson's bedroom.

The cardiologist has pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter and remains free on $75,000 bail.

—Additional reporting by Lindsay Miller