Anesthesiologist testifies Jackson wanted him to go on tour

Dr. David Adams is a Las Vegas anesthesiologist who had put Michael Jackson under four times for dental procedures. There were no complications, and the two had engaged in small talk.

Then on a Sunday in late March 2009, as he was getting ready to go to church, Adams received a call from someone he had never heard of, cardiologist Conrad Murray, Jackson’s personal physician.

Murray asked that he meet them in his office on East Flamingo Road. Murray would later be convicted of involuntary manslaughter for administering the fatal dose of the anesthetic propofol to Jackson in June 2009 to help him sleep.

Adams arrived first, he testified Wednesday in a video deposition in the wrongful death suit filed by Jackson’s mother and three children against AEG, the promoter of the singer’s comeback concerts. Murray drove up soon after, with the singer sitting in the back seat.

Jackson was dressed in black, with a scarf, “and it was about a thousand degrees outside,” Adams said. He told the singer how ridiculous he looked.

They walked into Murray’s office and Jackson started talking about his planned comeback concerts in London. “He says, ‘The only reason I’m doing this tour is because I want to prove to my kids that I’m the best entertainer in the world,’ ” Adams recalled.

Jackson and Murray went to the back of the office for 15 minutes.

When they returned, “Murray really looked like he had just lost his best friend,” Adams said.

Jackson said he wanted Adams to go on tour with him. The anesthesiologist thought it was an odd request, since he couldn’t sing or dance.

Then, he testified, Jackson said, “I would like for you to help me get my rest.” That didn’t make sense to Adams. When Jackson told him that after all the action in his show he sometimes needed an IV, Adams told him that was Murray’s purview.

Neither Jackson nor Murray mentioned propofol or that the singer had difficulty sleeping, Adams testified.

Jackson said he wanted Adams to come to London with him but that they might take the show to other countries. He asked him how much money it would take for Adams to shut down his practice for a year.

“I still wasn’t under the impression I was going to be practicing medicine,” Adams said, adding that he wondered if his job would be to sing Jackson to sleep. “It was sort of mind-boggling that someone would be asking me to go anywhere.”

After the 2½- to 3-hour meeting, Adams went home to think about the proposition. He said he had three short conversations with Murray and told him he needed $100,000 a month for three years.

He sent a text to Murray, “What’s going on? I’m on board.”

He said he never heard from either of them again.

On June 24, Murray signed a contract that would pay him $150,000 a month to go on the “This Is It Tour.” Neither Jackson nor AEG signed. The next day the singer was dead.

Jackson’s family is suing AEG and three executives, saying that they negligently hired and supervised Murray. AEG says that the singer hired Murray and that any money the company was supposed to pay him was an advance to Jackson.

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jeff.gottlieb@latimes.com