LOS ANGELES (AFP) — Police carried out a series of raids across California on Friday as part of a probe into the drugs overdose death of former Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith, justice officials said.
California Attorney General Jerry Brown said police swooped on the offices of doctors who prescribed drugs to the model before her sudden death in a Florida hotel room in February.
"The Department of Justice today served search warrants at various doctors' offices, billing locations and residences in Los Angeles and Orange County," Brown told reporters.
"The locations that were searched relate to doctors who prescribed medical treatment or prescribed drugs for Anna Nicole Smith or her associates."
Brown said eight warrants had been issued but no arrests had been made.
He said detectives had pored over "100,000 computer images and files, analyzed patient profiles and pharmacy logs and interviewed witnesses throughout the country and abroad" as part of the investigation.
Smith's tragic death became a worldwide media sensation earlier this year, coming just months after her son Daniel had died from an overdose in the Bahamas in September last year.
An autopsy found that Smith died after taking a lethal cocktail of anti-anxiety medication, methadone, antibiotics and other prescription drugs.
Brown declined to comment when asked if the search warrants may result in murder charges in connection with Smith's death, although he hinted a "serious crime" may have been committed if drugs were prescribed illegally.
"But we have to do a thorough investigation and we don't want to jump the gun," he said.
"The goal of this investigation is to flesh out the circumstances surrounding the death of Anna Nicole Smith, particularly as it is affected by prescriptions and medical interventions by licensed professionals of the state," Brown said.
Among the locations searched on Friday were the offcies of Smith's former psychiatrist, Khristine Eroshevich, who is alleged to have prescribed numberous drugs to the model following the death of her son.
"There's a search warrant being executed by state authorities into the question of whether or not Dr Eroshevich's prescriptions were in accordance with California law,'' Eroshevich's attorney Gary Lincenberg told reporters.
"This has nothing to do with whether or not Dr. Eroshevich in any way contributed to Anna Nicole Smith's death."
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