Doc prescribed Prince opioids under friend’s name
MINNEAPOLIS: Court documents unsealed on Monday in the investigation into Prince’s death suggest a doctor and a close friend helped him improperly obtain prescription opioid painkillers, but they shed no new light on how the superstar got the fentanyl that killed him.
The affidavits and search warrants were unsealed in Carver County District Court as the year-long investigation into Prince’s death continues. The documents show authorities searched Paisley Park, mobile phone records of Prince’s associates and Prince’s email accounts to try to determine how he got the fentanyl, a synthetic opioid drug 50 times more powerful than heroin.
The documents don’t reveal answers to that question but do provide the most details yet seen on Prince’s struggle with addiction to prescription opioids in the days before he died.
Prince was 57 when he was found alone and unresponsive in an elevator at his Paisley Park estate on April 21. Just six days earlier he fell ill on a plane and had to be revived with two doses of a drug that reverses the effects of an opioid overdose.
Associates at Paisley Park also told investigators that Prince was recently “going through withdrawals, which are believed to be the result of the abuse of prescription medication”.
The documents unsealed on Monday allege Dr Michael Todd Schulenberg, a family physician who saw the musician twice last April, told authorities he prescribed the opioid painkiller oxycodone to Prince but put it under the name of Prince’s bodyguard and close friend, Kirk Johnson, “for Prince’s privacy”, one affidavit said.
Dr Schulenberg’s attorney, Amy Conners, disputed that. She said in a statement Dr Schulenberg “never directly prescribed opioids to Prince, nor did he ever prescribe opioids to any other person with the intent that they would be given to Prince”.
F Clayton Tyler, Mr Johnson’s lawyer, released a statement saying after reviewing the documents, “We believe that it is clear that Kirk Johnson did not secure nor supply the drugs which caused Prince’s death.”
Dr Schulenberg is practising family medicine in Minnesota and Ms Conners said there are no restrictions on his licence. It is illegal for a doctor to write a prescription for someone under another person’s name.
Joe Tamburino, a Minnesota defence lawyer who is not associated with the Prince case, said while Dr Schulenberg and Mr Johnson could face charges if the allegations are true, it’s unlikely state or federal prosecutors would pursue them. He called them low-level offences that wouldn’t draw prison time.
He said for prosecutors, the source of the fentanyl is the big target. “The oxycodone in this case is only tangential to the whole case,” Mr Tamburino said. “If this was a fentanyl script, oh boy, it would be a totally different situation.”
The documents said Prince did not have any prescriptions, including for fentanyl.
James Jones, a spokesman for the US Drug Enforcement Administration’s field office in Chicago, said anyone convicted of writing a prescription for someone under another person’s name could lose their DEA registration — meaning they could no longer prescribe — and could face discipline from their state medical board.
In practice, laws against prescribing drugs for someone under a false name are not usually enforced when a doctor intends to protect a celebrity’s privacy, said Los Angeles lawyer Ellyn Garofalo.
“They would be indicting every pharmacist in Beverly Hills if this were strictly enforced,” Ms Garofalo said.
A search of Prince’s home yielded numerous pills in various containers. Some were in prescription bottles for Mr Johnson.
Some pills in other bottles were marked “Watson 853”, a label used for a drug that is a mixture of acetaminophen and hydrocodone, another opioid painkiller.
Last August, an official with knowledge of the investigation said at least one of those pills tested positive for fentanyl, meaning the pill was counterfeit and obtained illegally. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation.
In addition to the dozens of pills recovered, authorities also found a pamphlet for an addiction recovery centre in California, the documents show. The day before Prince died, Paisley Park staff members contacted the California addiction specialist because they were trying to get Prince help.
Prince did not have a mobile phone and authorities searched multiple email accounts they believed he was using. The search warrants don’t reveal the outcome of the searches.