LOS ANGELES — Michael Jackson was a spendaholic who squandered millions on his amusement park, private zoo and railroad at Neverland while digging himself a half-billion dollars into debt, a forensic accountant testified yesterday.
“He liked to spend money,” said CPA William Ackerman, an expert witness called by AEG Live, the defendant in the wrongful-death suit brought by Jackson’s family.
When Jackson died in 2009 from an overdose of an anesthetic administered by Dr. Conrad Murray, he was roughly $500 million in debt, despite an annual income of more than $25 million.