Heath Ledger Drug Probe Dropped, Mary-Kate Off The Hook

NEW YORK — Federal prosecutors have decided not to pursue a criminal case into how Heath Ledger obtained the powerful painkillers that contributed to his overdose death this year, a law enforcement official said 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 bowed out "because they don't believe there's a viable target," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because no charges have been filed.

The decision comes after recent reports that actress Mary-Kate Olsen was demanding immunity before answering questions about the startling death of her close friend and his drug use. Authorities say she was the first person called by a masseuse who found the 28-year-old "Dark Knight" actor's lifeless body in his Manhattan apartment.

The DEA had obtained a subpoena that could have forced Olsen if she continued to hold out. But the subpoena, issued in April, is no longer valid because it was contingent upon prosecutors pursuing the case, the official said Wednesday. The official added that the case could still be revived if evidence of a crime emerges.

Rebekah Carmichael, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office, said it's the office's policy to "neither confirm nor deny the existance of an investigation." There was no immediate response to a message left for Olsen's attorney, Michael C. Miller.

DEA investigators suspect the painkillers found in Ledger's system, oxycodone and hydrocodone, were obtained with phony prescriptions or other illegal means. Oxycodone is sold as OxyContin and hydrocodone as Vicodin.

Miller insisted this week that Olsen, a former child star on the sitcom "Full House," had already told the government she "does not know 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 around the time of his death.

Other drugs taken by Ledger, including anti-anxiety medication 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 found but made clear he was killed by the combination _ not an excess of any one drug in particular. It's common for the DEA to investigate an overdose 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 spent nine minutes making three calls to Olsen before dialing 911 for help, then called the actress a fourth time after paramedics arrived. At some point during the flurry of frantic calls, Olsen, who was in California, summoned her personal security guards to the apartment to help, police said.

Ledger died after 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.

Comments

[qdemn7]

Just proves the more money you have in America, the more Justice you can afford.

[wayoutleft]

several very dear friends accidentally overdosed on these types of medications. i've never enjoyed them. they produce very physical sensations that i wouldn't describe in any way as being high. but there is a physical awareness and warmth that is pleasurable. there is a great temptation to augment this sensation by taking more. but that is not what happens when you take more.

nor did these Lotus-Eaters have any thought of destroying
our companions, but they only gave them lotus to taste of.
But any of them who ate the honey-sweet fruit of lotus
was unwilling to take any message back, or to go
away, but they wanted to stay there with the lotus-eating
people, feeding on lotus, and forget the way home.
I myself
took these men back weeping, by force, to where the ships were,
and put them aboard under the rowing benches and tied them
fast, then gave the order to the rest of my eager
companions to embark on the ships in haste, for fear
someone else might taste of the lotus and forget the way home...

------- homer, odyssey ix

[hosshoss777]

There's a big fish or two that got away, it could very well be a Medical or Phamacology "professional".It's a shame really how these mostly young celebrities get these new style pushers in their pockets. They come right in with the money. It occurs to me that big corporate money in Entertainment, uses drugs to control their stars and or take back a little of the money they made.
Heath Ledger died alone, clearly he had no true friends around him while all this was going on. I'm quite sure this Olson girl is many things, but a friend to Ledger?

[Destin]

I wonder what Mary-Kate had to hide, if she requested immunity and was already pleading the 5th for no apparent reason??

I'd have to point to JSINCLAIR's post further down the page, as a good summation of the curiousity surrounding this tragedy. He brings to light alot of things people here aren't even thinking about, or taking into consideration. And if he, is a she, since I can't "see" who they are, lol, then I apologize and will stand corrected.

[LittleLiberal]

I think we've all learned a valuable lesson here. If you show up to your celebrity clients house and find him/her dead, don't call one of the Olsen twins, call the police first. (That is, unless one of the twins can actually bring people back from the dead. In that case, by all means call her first.)

[BroMan]

Was she ever "on the hook" ? Lame.

[SomaMinneapolis]

Go see "Wackness" then you celeb haters can pontificate on how Ben Kingsley must be involved in this somehow.

[Amennyc]

She figured I am richer than Rove so why should I be questioned? That only for the commoners!

[BigCheese]

Or maybe she was just exercising the same exact same right that we "commoners" have -- the right to say "no thanks" to investigators on a fishing expedition without a subpoena. And even if they had a subpoena, she could still plead the 5th Amendment and refuse to talk.

It's all right there in the Constitution. You should read it sometime.

[RonNYC]

Who cares? Most people can order drugs over the internet. Big deal if she did. He just took too much. A shame because I came to appreciate his talent in later years.

[jsinclair]

Looks like Ledger got his Vicodin and Oxycontin from Mary-Kate.

Did she have a prescription for it or not? Why cover up the fishy 9 minute delay before the masseuse called 911 (first talking back and forth with Olsen three times and then Olsen sending her own security guard over to...what?...hide the drug bottle?)

First they supoena Olsen who refuses to speak to them voluntarily, then the very next they drop the whole investigation.

This is so fishy it stinks.

[poomplet]

Jeezuz...you celeb haters are completely back asswards on this!

It is certainly NOT common for the DEA to get involved in overdose cases like this...that "...because of the number of drugs involved" is insanely bogus. This is/was a case of federal "star 'effing"....or would that be better labeled "celebranecrophelia" because he's dead.

The NYPD is furious at how the DEA stepped in and took over...THEY have publically accused them of being publicity-hungry carpetbaggers. TMZ reports: "the DEA went all over the country, in one case tracking down a guy in California who smoked a joint with Ledger in the '90s, telling him he had to testify in a Grand Jury probe. And how's this for chutzpah ... the DEA told the guy he would have to pay his own way to NYC to testify before the Grand Jury!" http://www.tmz.com/2008/08/07/d-e-a-what-were-they-smoking/

No...this isn't a case where celebs are getting off because they're celebs..its a case where there would never would have been an investigation had the victim not been a celeb. The DEA was actually hoping to take this to a grand jury, but the US Attorney's office had to step in yesterday and call it off themselves...publicly embarrassing the DEA. (one of the few instances of them doing the right thing).

[arunachala]

yup money talks the loudest. this could've been big. it would've opened the floodgates to the rampant and practically public drug use of the celebs. while instead the war on drugs if fought in the ghettos instead of the hills

[marymansour]

Apparently the Federal Prosecutors are not above being swayed by power, celebrity and money. Mary Kate probably slipped a fat bill or two in their wallets and blinked her raccoon's kohl lined eyes and that was it. This is a real shame too because I always smelled a rat in the two calls that DID not dispatch the paramedics right away.

[angelwax]

Funny how a little pull in the right direction can keep "celebrities" from the hands of justice like us commoners would have to endure.

[brokenSoldier]

I don't see it that way. When a friend dies, the first thought in my head is how I can help figure out the problems that led to the tragedy, and definitely NOT looking out for my own skin by stipulating immunity before I help. I'm not saying she had any criminal complicity in his death, but it does look truly fishy that she was demanding immunity before helping investigators figure out what happened. Her fourth anf fifth amendment rights barely, if any, played into it, because the authorities were simply looking for information, and had put the request for such out to multiple people - not just her. And her insistence on getting immunity tells me at the very least that there is something she herself believes she needs immunity FOR.

[Bettysdad]

Exactly what was the involvement of the US Attorneys and DEA in Limbaugh's case?

[marymansour]

Once again celebrity and money wins the day. Only the poor and powerless get nailed.