WASHINGTON AND LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Police Department's request for federal drug agents to join the investigation of Michael Jackson's death indicates that illegal activity may be suspected in the dispensing of painkillers, sedatives, antidepressants or other medications to the 50-year-old entertainer, according to a law enforcement official.
Some of Jackson's friends, family and confidants have come forward to say that he was abusing painkillers and other prescription drugs over a long period of time, and that perhaps others in his ever-changing entourage kept him supplied, which could be illegal. The DEA is investigating various possibly related activities, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.
The LAPD's request for the federal Drug Enforcement Administration to get involved in the case is typical because of the agency's experience and jurisdiction in investigating suspected drug overdoses and other deaths in which the use or abuse of drugs and prescription medication is suspected to have played a role, the official said.
In another sign of a widening probe, California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown said Thursday that his office is helping the LAPD.
Brown said state law enforcement officials are using a computer database to mine for information on prescription drugs that will be passed on to investigators with the LAPD's Robbery-Homicide Division.
The database contains the name of every doctor that prescribes controlled medicine, the person for whom the drug is prescribed, the quantity and the date.
"We are using it to probe for relevant information in the Jackson case," Brown said. "If it's about doctors, drugs and patients or anything that touches that, it's in our database. We've been in touch with the LAPD, and I've talked to" Police Chief William J. Bratton.
In March, prosecutors charged Anna Nicole Smith's boyfriend and two of her doctors with repeatedly supplying the former Playboy centerfold with addictive prescription drugs since 2004, nearly three years before she died of an overdose.
The DEA has the resources and expertise to investigate such cases, including federal drug agents and specially trained "diversion investigators." These investigators don't carry badges or guns, but they investigate pharmacies, doctors and so-called pill mills -- black market storefronts and Internet sites that provide drugs and medication, often bootleg varieties, without regard to obtaining the proper prescription or quality control, the official said.
