Report: DEA involved in Jackson probe

STAFF REPORT

Because of the circumstances surrounding Michael Jackson's death last week, the Drug Enforcement Administration has been asked to help the Los Angeles Police Department examine the pop star's doctors and possible drug use, according to a law enforcement official in Washington who told the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the investigation's sensitivity.

Allegations have emerged that the 50-year-old King of Pop had been consuming painkillers, sedatives and antidepressants.

Two of Jackson's former confidantes, Uri Geller and ex-bodyguard Matt Fiddes, say they tried in vain to keep the pop superstar from abusing painkillers and other prescription drugs suspected of leading to his death - but others in the singer's circle kept the supplies flowing.

"When Michael asked for something, he got it. This was the great tragedy," Geller told the AP on Thursday.

Geller, who said he suffered a falling-out with Jackson several years ago over the issue, said he often had "to shout at Michael, to scream at Michael" as he sought to confiscate the singer's stocks of medication during his travels in England. Geller said he slept on floors or sofas in Jackson's hotel suites in a bid to talk sense into his sometimes-incoherent friend.

"Most of the people around Michael could not say `No!' to him. He desperately needed someone there all the time who could say `No!' and mean it, who could warn him of the dangers ... and tell him the truth," Geller said. "The big problem was that many people wanted to help Michael, to save his life, but we could not be there all the time."

Geller said Jackson relied on medications to help him cope with relentless pressure and media criticism in his later years. "With his sanity buffeted and health wracked by global bullying nonstop, I think it's actually incredible that Michael held up as well as he did," he said.

• Related: Nurse: Jackson begged for sedative

Fiddes, who worked as a senior bodyguard during Jackson's travels in Britain for a decade, said the pop idol abused prescription medications, not recreational drugs, and took so much that it could be difficult to wake him for engagements.

"I confiscated packages and Uri did too. I mean, Uri confiscated injection equipment from his room," Fiddes said in an interview broadcast Thursday by Sky News. "And Uri would scream at Michael, you know, intensely, to stop doing this. But we just were getting pushed out."

Fiddes recalled one occasion when Jackson planned to visit London Zoo to see the gorillas, chimpanzees and other primates - but was too spaced out to go anywhere.

The bodyguard said he and Geller "were both shaking him trying to wake him up. It was clear that he had taken something that morning and he was hard to wake. We were extremely concerned ... We couldn't get him in a state that would portray him in a good light."

Fiddes said both he and Geller told others supplying medications to Jackson to stop, but when their efforts "got back to Michael, he would have a screaming fit that we were interfering with his private life. He was in denial."

Jermaine Jackson said he would be "hurt" if toxicology reports show that Michael Jackson abused prescription drugs, but that he did not know about any drug use by his younger brother.

"In this business, the pressures and things that you go through, you never know what one turns to," Jermaine Jackson said in an interview broadcast Thursday on NBC's "Today" show.

Asked if he would be shocked or surprised if Michael's drug use was proven, Jermaine said, "I would be hurt." He said he had heard about prescription drug use in the 1980s when his brother was hurt in an accident filming a commercial but did not know if drug use was a possibility more recently.

"I don't know about these things, because I hate anything with drugs," he said, adding that it hurts the family for people to say things about drug use "because we don't know."