Katherine Jackson tentatively rested her megabucks wrongful death case against concert promoter AEG Live Friday pending some legal wrangling and a judge's decision on whether she can show jurors never-before-seen "This Is It" rehearsal footage.
Katherine wants AEG to pay damages topping $1 billion, claiming the concert giant negligently hired and supervised Dr. Conrad Murray, the doctor convicted of giving her superstar son a lethal dose of the anesthetic propofol as a sleep aid.
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Her lawyer said the rehearsal outtakes show that the King of Pop was visibly impaired around AEG executives shortly before his June 25, 2009 death.
"AEG has made the defense that 'This Is It' shows Michael looking great the last two days of his life, but if you look at the raw footage, it tells a different story," lawyer Kevin Boyle told the Daily News outside court.
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"There's some video from June 16 where Mr. Jackson is being helped up a ramp by two people, a ramp that other people walked up and down no problem."
AEG's lead lawyer Marvin Putnam said Friday that if the judge decides Katherine can show the footage, he wants jurors to see all the raw video from the "Thriller" singer's final rehearsals.
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He said Michael never went full throttle during rehearsals, but still looked "astounding" and "would have been amazing" if he'd made it to London for his big concert comeback.
Putnam said Michael only needed help up the ramp because it was "wobbly" and he wasn't wearing rubber shoes.
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He was adamant Friday that his client was not to blame for Michael's shocking propofol overdose in his private bedroom and that Katherine failed to show otherwise.
"This has never been anything but a shakedown," Putnam told the News. "As we all know, Dr. Conrad Murray was Michael Jackson's longtime doctor for three-plus years, and (Michael) approached AEG and said, 'Hey, I'm taking him on tour with me.' It wasn't a question. It wasn't an ask. He said, 'I'm taking him.'"
Putnam said his client was in negotiations to advance money to Murray at Michael's request, but Murray's contract was never signed by anyone at AEG, and the concert company never paid the doctor a cent.
"The only evidence of any payment to Dr. Conrad Murray is (money paid) by Michael Jackson," he said. "There's nothing by AEG Live, because they never hired him."
Closing arguments are scheduled to begin Tuesday but could be delayed if the judge allows large portions of rehearsal footage to be shown to the jury.
ndillon@nydailynews.com
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