Coroner, Doc, Advisor Swept Up in Jackson Intrigue

July 25, 2009— -- The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office is looking into whether county coroner's office employees may have illegally leaked or sold private information from the Michael Jackson death investigation.

"We are not investigating the leak at the coroner's office," sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore said. "We are doing a preliminary inquiry to see if an investigation is warranted in the leaking of information. If anything rises to the level of a criminal act then an investigation will ensue. Right now it has to do with inappropriate behavior that may not be criminal."

The news comes after reports that employees improperly viewed Jackson's death certificate and accessed sensitive computers.

It also follows several other developments related to Michael Jackson's June 25 death and its aftermath.

Search warrants made public Thursday suggested Dr. Conrad Murray, the personal physician who was with Michael Jackson at his California rental home when the singer died last month, is a specific target of a police manslaughter investigation. Searches of Murray's office and a storage facility yielded drugs, documents and computer hard drives.

This weekend, a former Jackson financial advisor, Dr. Tohme Tohme, said he returned $5.5 million Jackson had given to him to hold in "secret" so it eventually could be used to purchase a house.

Administrators of Jackson's estate said they are working on deals that potentially could help bring in tens of millions dollars more for Jackson's heirs, according to court records.

The records add that Jackson's mother and his three kids, for whom she is legal guardian, are asking for a "family allowance" to help with living expenses.

Find 'Evidence of the Offense of Manslaughter'

The search warrants that emerged this week told police they were "commanded to search ... for property or items constituting evidence of the offense of manslaughter that tend to show that Dr. Conrad Murray committed the said criminal offense."

Both facilities containing Murray's property in the Houston area were searched Wednesday, and the warrants instructed authorities to ship any evidence found to officials in California.

Murray's lawyer, Edward Chernoff, said Wednesday that the search warrant for the office gave police the power to look for anything that "they believed constituted evidence of the offense of manslaughter."

Among the items seized from the office were a vial containing 27 tablets of the weight loss drug phentermine, a vial containing a tablet of the muscle relaxant clonazepam, a photocopy picture of Murray, Rolodex cards, public storage receipts and a receipt for a "Cricket" phone, according to a receipt attached to the warrant.

Cricket phones essentially are untraceable, because the company requires no contracts, no credit checks and no set-up fees, according to a sales representative for the company. Cricket also has the "PAYGo" option, which means someone can go to a store and pay for phone minutes with cash.

Other items seized from the storage unit, according to the court records, included two computer hard drives and a "Texas Department of Public Safety controlled substance registration." Authorities also obtained a suspension notice from a Houston hospital.

Click on the following links to examine Monday's search warrant for Murray's office and a list of what was seized and Wednesday's search warrant for his storage facility and what was seized there. The documents were obtained by ABC News Houston affiliate KTRK.

The warrants, signed by Harris County, Texas, District Court Judge Shawna Reagin Monday and Wednesday, specifically directed officers to "seize and examine all items including but not limited to, billing records, medication orders, transport receipts, billing receipts, medical records and computerized medical records, for implements and instruments used in the commission of a crime."

Intravenous Sedative Involved in Jackson Death?

Investigators looking into Jackson's death believe that someone was intravenously administering propofol, a powerful sedative, to Jackson at his home.

Propofol was not listed on the court documents among the items seized from Murray's property.

"I think investigators are trying to find evidence that will tie Dr. Murray into the fatal dose of propofol," ABC News legal analyst Dana Cole said. "Whether any of these documents that they've obtained by searching his office can point in this direction remains to be seen."

Medical experts have soundly agreed that a drug like propofol, which is typically used in the hospital to sedate patients for surgery or other medical procedures, should not be used in the home.

Murray's lawyers have maintained for weeks that the doctor was simply a witness in Jackson's death and had nothing to do with it.

An involuntary manslaughter charge, which law enforcement sources have told ABC News is the mostly likely charge to come out of the Murray investigation, means the person charged did not intentionally cause the death but knew his or her actions were risky enough to do so.

Former Jackson attorney Mark Geragos told "Good Morning America" that in addition to involuntary manslaughter, Los Angeles-area law enforcement officials in cases similar to Jackson's have been known to levy a charge of "implied malice murder."

"Which means," Geragos said, "somebody didn't intentionally mean to kill someone but acted so recklessly" that it could constitute a murder charge.

Murray, Jackson's personal physician hired to monitor the entertainer for his "This Is It" tour, was called to Jackson's house the day before he died and was the person who found him unconscious and not breathing in bed the next day.

Murray has been widely criticized by medical professionals for waiting more than 30 minutes to call 911 and for performing CPR on a bed instead of a hard surface. He has continually denied giving Jackson any drug that could have killed him.

The Jackson family has said from the start that they were suspicious of its most famous member's death. Joe Jackson told ABC News earlier this month that he thinks his son was the victim of "foul play," and La Toya Jackson went so far as to tell British tabloids that she believed her brother was murdered.

ABC News' Sarah Netter, Sarah Amos and Lauren Pearle, and The Associated Press contributed to this report.