LOS ANGELES - — LOS ANGELES - -A lawyer for Michael Jackson's personal physician said Sunday that reports that the doctor injected the pop star with a powerful painkiller before his death were "absolutely false."
"There was no Demerol. No OxyContin," said Edward Chernoff, the attorney for Dr. Conrad Murray.
The lawyer, who was present Saturday for Murray's three-hour interview with Los Angeles Police Department detectives, said Jackson was already unconscious when the doctor "fortuitously" entered the bedroom of the performer's Holmby Hills mansion.
The 50-year-old entertainer "wasn't breathing. He checked for a pulse. There was a weak pulse in his femoral artery. He started administering CPR," said Chernoff, a Houston criminal defense attorney.
The lawyer's claim was consistent with the account of a source close to the investigation who told the Los Angeles Times that the lengthy interview with the doctor turned up "no smoking gun."
Murray had not "furnished or prescribed" Jackson with Demerol, the lawyer said. He described Murray as stunned by Jackson's death.
Murray, a cardiologist with practices in Nevada and Texas, shuttered his offices in May after Jackson asked him to travel to London for a seven-month concert run.
Chernoff said the promoter, Los Angeles-based AEG Live, had agreed to pay the doctor $300,000 and was still owed the money.
AEG Live chief executive Randy Phillips has described Murray as Jackson's personal physician of three years. Murray's attorney, however, said that although the men had known each other since 2006, Murray only came on as Jackson's personal physician in May for the London shows.
On Friday, a police detective told the Times that investigators had no information that Jackson was injected with Demerol or other painkillers.
Such claims "are coming from outside the investigation," said Lt. Gregg Strenk, head of the department's Homicide Special Section 1, to which the case is assigned.
In an interview that aired Sunday, Jackson's father said he does not think stress over the intense series of planned comeback concerts led to his death.
Joe Jackson also said he thinks his son will be larger in death than he was in life. The patriarch of the Jackson 5 said he wished his son were around to see the outpouring of affection since his death.
"Michael was the biggest superstar in the world and in history," Joe Jackson told Fox News Channel's Geraldo at Large. "He was loved by everybody, whether poor or wealthy or whatever may be."
The Associated Press contributed to this article
