LOS ANGELES — With Los Angeles detectives and federal drug agents raiding the Houston office of Michael Jackson’s personal doctor Wednesday, signs point to manslaughter charges potentially looming in the entertainer’s death.
While officials have yet to reveal whether they are pursuing criminal charges, the warrant used to conduct the search on Dr. Conrad Murray’s clinic did state the intention of seeking evidence for a manslaughter case.
“We can confirm that a search warrant was executed today on Dr. Murray’s offices in Houston Texas,” Ed Chernoff, Murray’s attorney, said in a statement posted on his law firm’s Web site. “We reviewed the warrant and remained on the premises while the search was being executed. The search was conducted by members of the DEA, two Robbery – Homicide detectives from the Los Angeles Police Department and Houston Police officers.
“The search warrant authorized law enforcement to search for and seize items, including documents, they believed constituted evidence of the offense of manslaughter,” the statement continued. “Law enforcement concluded their search around 12:30 p.m., and left with a forensic image of a business computer hard drive and 21 documents. None of the documents taken had previously been requested by law enforcement or the L.A. Coroner’s office.”
Murray was with Jackson when the entertainer fell ill at his home and later died on June 25. He has previously denied any wrongdoing in the singer’s death.
Many have speculated that Jackson’s death was tied to prescription drugs, but officials are still awaiting toxicology reports. Shortly after the King of Pop’s death, investigators removed at least two bags of medication from the Holmby Hills home that he was renting. One of those drugs is believed to be Propofol, an extremely powerful drug also known as Diprivan. The drug is administered intravenously as a general anesthetic used to sedate patients for surgery and is only available to medical personnel. Jackson is believed to have used it in order to sleep.
The death investigation also included the Los Angeles County Coroner’s office serving a subpoena Wednesday in order to search the records of Jackson’s former nutritionist, Cherilyn Lee. The registered nurse, who Jackson leaned on to boost his energy, previously told The Associated Press that the singer repeatedly asked her for Diprivan, but she denied his requests. However, Lee later feared that Jackson had managed to obtain the drug after receiving a “frantic phone call” from a member of his staff just four days before his death.
“He called and was very frantic and said, ‘Michael needs to see you right away,’ ” she told AP. “I said, ‘What’s wrong?’ And I could hear Michael in the background [saying], ‘One side of my body is hot, it’s hot, and one side of my body is cold, it’s very cold.’
“At that point, I knew that somebody had given him something that hit the central nervous system,” she continued. “He was in trouble Sunday and he was crying out.”
Lee, who specializes in nutritional counseling, told AP that contrary to reports, Jackson wasn’t abusing drugs. Rather, he was simply seeking a way to fight sleep deprivation on the heels of his scheduled July comeback tour in London.
“He wasn’t looking to get high or feel good and sedated from drugs,” she said. “This was a person who was not on drugs. This was a person who was seeking help, desperately, to get some sleep, to get some rest.”
