Michael Jackson's guards bullied doctor

Jul 13, 2009, 9:28 GMT

The unnamed physician visited the Las Vegas hotel suite where the late pop superstar - who died of a suspected cardiac arrest last month - was staying in November 2003 after being told the singer had a cough and sore throat. EPA/JOSHUA GATES WEISBERG

Michael Jackson's bodyguard tried to threaten a doctor into giving him prescription drugs.

The unnamed physician visited the Las Vegas hotel suite where the late pop superstar - who died of a suspected cardiac arrest last month - was staying in November 2003 after being told the singer had a cough and sore throat.

However, when the doctor arrived he could not find anything wrong with Jackson.

He said: "The whole thing was staged. It was all a lie. They just wanted drugs. They wanted me to call in all these pills under someone else's name.

"His minder started giving me a rough time. He was trying to intimidate me. I said, 'I can't do that,' and he replied, 'What do you mean, they always do that.' "

The medic - who spoke out on the condition he could remain anonymous - stood his ground but as he left told Jackson's entourage he would "see what he could do".

The doctor added to the Las Vegas Review Journal newspaper: "The handler came up to me and put a finger in my chest and said, 'You do that.' "

He added: "I was waiting for someone to jump out of bushes and say 'You've been punked!' I felt like I was on 'Candid Camera.' "

The doctor - who never saw Jackson or his entourage again - also believes the singer displayed "classic signs of autism", the brain development disorder of which symptoms include poor social interaction and communication, abnormal intensity or focus, severe insomnia and unusual eating habits.

Jackson - who was allegedly addicted to several prescription drugs - is alleged to have regularly filed prescriptions under assumed names, and visited several different Los Angeles dentists, as well as doctors, in a bid to obtain more.

Police documents from the 2005 child molestation court case brought against the singer showed he had obtained drugs by using different aliases from as early as 1993 - when he was first investigated over similar accusations.

Security worker Joey Jeszeck told Santa Barbara County Sheriff's deputies that the star would ask him "to go to a pharmacy and pick up his prescription for him," explaining they were often under different names.

His statement added: "Sometimes the pharmacy wouldn't release Jackson's medication to him since it was not in Jeszeck's name. Jackson would then call the doctor and have the prescription changed into the name of the person he was sending to pick it up. One of these doctors was Dr. Farshchian in Florida."

The documents also show the singer's dermatologist Dr. Arnold Klein refused to hand over Jackson's medical records during the investigation.

A deputy sheriff wrote an affidavit revealing she had issued a search warrant at Dr. Klein's Beverly Hills office in November 1993, looking for Michael Jackson's records and spoke to the doctor when the document was served.

Her affidavit adds: "Dr. Klein said that prior to the service of the search warrant on November 19, 1993, he removed Jackson's medical files from his office at Mr. Andelson's (his lawyer's) direction and kept the files in his home and car."

Los Angeles coroners have reportedly claimed Dr. Klein is refusing to hand over records to them as they investigate the singer's death.