CHANHASSEN, Minn. (AP) — A Minnesota doctor saw Prince twice in the month before his death, including the day before he died, and prescribed him medication, according to contents of search warrant that was revealed Tuesday even as authorities revisited the musician's estate.
Dr. Michael Todd Schulenberg treated Prince on April 7 and April 20, and he prescribed "medications and prescriptions" for the musician, according to the warrant, which was filed Thursday in Hennepin County and obtained by at least two news outlets before authorities moved to ensure it was sealed.
Investigators interviewed Schulenberg and searched a suburban Minneapolis hospital where he worked. The warrant did not specify what medications were prescribed for Prince or whether he took them.
Lesa Bader, a spokeswoman for North Memorial Medical Center, said Schulenberg was a primary care physician at its Minnetonka clinic but he no longer works for the health care system. No one answered the door at the doctor's home on Tuesday and a phone message left for him wasn't immediately returned.
Prince, 57, died April 21 at his Paisley Park home and studio in suburban Minneapolis. Autopsy results are pending.
A Carver County sheriff's vehicle entered through the gates of Paisley park Tuesday afternoon, followed by about a dozen unmarked vehicles. Officials at the scene would not respond to questions about what they were doing there. Carver County Sheriff's Chief Deputy Jason Kamerud told The Associated Press by phone that investigators are "being thorough."
A man wearing a sheriff's department badge got out of an unmarked vehicles and yelled, "Open the gates!" to the private security company inside. The vehicles then moved through the gates and went around to the door of Paisley Park. A siren briefly sounded, and then the cars disappeared from view.
A law enforcement official has told the AP that investigators are looking into whether Prince died from an overdose and whether a doctor was prescribing him drugs in the weeks before he was found dead at his home in suburban Minneapolis. The law enforcement official has been briefed on the investigation and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.
The search warrant whose contents were made public Tuesday was carried out at North Memorial Medical Center in the Minneapolis suburb of Robbinsdale.
The warrant, signed by Carver County Sheriff's Detective Chris Nelson, seeks "any and all medical records, documents, reports, charts, photographs, prescriptions, doctor notes and medical images for Prince Rogers Nelson." It also seeks any and all legal records attached to those files.
Kamerud said the warrant was supposed to have been filed under seal and he had contacted a court administrator to ensure that it was sealed. He said he could not comment on its contents.
The people who found Prince dead included Andrew Kornfeld, the son of California addiction specialist Dr. Howard Kornfeld, who was asked by Prince representatives to help the star.
Andrew Kornfeld carried buprenorphine, a drug often used to treat opiate addiction, to Minnesota on a redeye flight the night of April 20. Some attorneys and physicians have questioned the action as unusual and even absurd.
The Kornfelds' attorney, William Mauzy, said at a news conference last week that Dr. Kornfeld arranged for Prince to be evaluated by a Minnesota physician on April 21. The attorney refused then to identify the Minnesota doctor, and it was not clear whether that physician had a prior relationship with Prince.
The search warrant does not say whether Schulenberg was that doctor.
