Federal prosecutors take decided non to engage a criminal case into how Heath Ledger obtained the muscular painkillers that contributed to his o.d. death this year, a law enforcement official aforesaid Wednesday.
Prosecutors in the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan had been overseeing a Drug Enforcement Administration probe into whether the painkillers found in Ledger's system were obtained illegally. But the prosecutors have bandy out "because they don't believe there's a viable target," said the official, who rundle on term of anonymity because no charges have been filed.
The decision comes after late reports that actress Mary-Kate Olsen was demanding immunity before answering questions around the startling death of her close friend and his drug use. Authorities say she was the first person called by a masseuse who institute the 28-year-old "Dark Knight" actor's lifeless body in his Manhattan apartment.
The DEA had obtained a subpoena ad testificandum that could have constrained Olsen if she continued to restrain out. But the subpoena, issued in April, is no yearner valid because it was contingent upon prosecutors pursuing the caseful, the official said Wednesday. The official added that the caseful could still be revived if evidence of a crime emerges.
Rebekah Carmichael, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's bureau, said it's the office's policy to "neither confirm nor deny the existance of an investigation." There was no immediate reply to a message left for Olsen's attorney, Michael C. Miller.
DEA investigators mistrust the painkillers found in Ledger's organization, oxycodone and hydrocodone, were obtained with phony prescriptions or other illegal means. Oxycodone is sold as OxyContin and hydrocodone as Vicodin.
Miller insisted this hebdomad that Olsen, a other child star topology on the sitcom "Full House," had already told the regime she "does not live the source of the drugs Mr. Ledger consumed."
Other potential witnesses apparently answered questions voluntarily, including doctors, Ledger's ex-girlfriend Michelle Williams and people in his apartment about the clock time of his death.
Other drugs taken by Ledger, including anti-anxiety medicine and sleeping pills, were prescribed legally by doctors in California and Texas.
The medical examiner's office wouldn't say what concentrations of each drug were plant but made clear he was killed by the combination - not an excess of any unitary drug in particular. It's common for the DEA to enquire an o.d. death with so many different drugs involved, a DEA spokesman said last month.
The masseuse discovered Ledger's body on Jan. 22. Police say she exhausted nine minutes making three calls to Olsen in front dialing 911 for help, then called the actress a fourth part time after paramedics arrived. At some point during the stir of frenzied calls, Olsen, who was in California, summoned her personal security guards to the flat to help, police said.
Ledger died subsequently filming "The Dark Night," the latest movie in the "Batman" series, in which he has earned rave reviews for playing a maniacal Joker. The film had taken in more than $400 million domestically as of Monday.
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