The prosecutor in the Minnesota county where Prince died said on Thursday that no criminal charges will be filed in the musician’s death, effectively ending the state’s two-year investigation into how Prince obtained the powerful opiate fentanyl that killed him.
The announcement by Mark Metz, the Carver county district attorney, came just hours after documents revealed that a doctor who was accused of illegally prescribing prescription painkillers for use by Prince had agreed to pay $30,000 to settle a federal civil violation. Prosecutors alleged Dr Michael Todd Schulenberg wrote a prescription for an oxycodone-based opioid in the name of Prince’s bodyguard, intending it to go Prince.
Metz said the evidence shows Prince thought he was taking a prescription opioid, Vicodin, not the more potent fentanyl. He said there was no evidence any person associated with Prince knew he possessed any counterfeit pill containing fentanyl.
Prince was 57 when he was found alone and unresponsive at his Paisley Park studio complex on 21 April 2016. His death sparked a global outpouring of grief, and prompted a joint investigation by Carver County and federal authorities.
An autopsy found Prince died of an accidental overdose of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 50 times more powerful than heroin. State and federal authorities have been investigating the source of the fentanyl for nearly two years, and have still not determined where the drug came from or how Prince obtained it.
While Carver county said it was ending its role in the case, the US attorney’s office had no immediate comment on the status of its investigation, although it is understood to be inactive unless new information emerges.
Federal prosecutors and the US Drug Enforcement Administration alleged Schulenberg, a family physician who saw Prince at least twice before he died, violated the Controlled Substances Act when he wrote a prescription in the name of someone else on 14 April 2016.
The settlement, dated Monday, does not name Prince or make any references to the Prince investigation. However, search warrants previously released say Schulenberg told authorities he prescribed an oxycodone-based opioid to Prince on 14 Apriland put it under the name of Prince’s bodyguard and close friend, Kirk Johnson, “for Prince’s privacy”.
Oxycodone, the generic name for the active ingredient in popular prescription opioids such as OxyContin, was not listed as a cause of Prince’s death. But it is part of a family of painkillers driving an overdose and addiction epidemic in the US.