Conrad Murray mistress to take stand in Jackson death case

Dr. Conrad Murray’s mistress was expected to take the stand Tuesday in the physician’s trial in Michael Jackson’s death, offering jurors a glimpse into what prosecutors allege is a messy personal life that kept the doctor preoccupied when his attention should have been on his patient.

Nicole Alvarez, a Santa Monica actress who is mother to Murray’s toddler son, was one of three women who testified at a hearing earlier this year about their relationships with the married doctor.

A prosecutor asked Alvarez at that hearing about $2,500 Murray gave her monthly for rent, suggesting that  his many affairs and extramarital children may have left him desperate for the $150,000 salary he was to receive for Jackson’s care.

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Alvarez said she first met Murray in 2005 when she was working at a Las Vegas gentlemen’s club where he was a customer. She said that in the time leading up to Jackson’s death, she knew Murray left her apartment each night to care for the singer.

But Murray never told her the details of the treatments, Alvarez told the judge, saying their relationship was “on a need-to-know basis.”

It was to Alvarez’s apartment that Murray had shipped numerous bottles of the surgical anesthetic propofol from a Las Vegas pharmacy, telling the pharmacist that the drugs were for his clinic.