Los Angeles County sheriff’s investigators are trying to figure out whether employees at the coroner’s office illegally leaked or sold private information related to the investigation of Michael Jackson’s death, reports the Associated Press.
Investigators spoke to the coroner’s office Friday and will handle the inquiry with the district attorney’s office, according to sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore. The department is conducting the probe at the request of county supervisors, he said.
“It’s an inquiry, not an investigation, and it is very preliminary,” Whitmore said. “We’ve just made a couple of calls. We want to find out if we need to proceed, if this requires an investigation.”
The coroner’s office said Wednesday Jackson’s death certificate was improperly viewed by at least a half-dozen employees who had no role in investigating the cause of his death. Improper views of the certificate, which is stored in a state-supervised computer system, is a violation of internal rules, not any laws, Harvey said.
Within two weeks of the entertainer’s June 25 death, the certificate had been viewed more than 300 times, according to Harvey. The electronic death registration system can be accessed by anyone with a state-issued password, including employees at coroner’s offices, funeral homes, hospitals and county and state registrar’s offices.
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