Celebrity Mound

Actor Corey Haim employed “doctor shopping” to obtain 553 prescription pills in the two months before his death, California Attorney General Jerry Brown said Tuesday.

Haim obtained the meds, which included Valium, Vicodin, Xanax and Soma, through seven different doctors and seven pharmacies, Brown said, and he used an alias on at least one occasion.

Brown said it did not appear the doctors knew Haim was obtaining prescriptions through multiple sources. He said investigators verified Haim filled the prescriptions this year, but have also found that thousands of pills were obtained in Haim’s name before then.

He called Haim – the star of 1980s films such as “The Lost Boys” and “License to Drive” – a “poster child” for prescription drug abuse. He said that it wasn’t just celebrities who were obtaining massive quantities of prescription drugs through doctor-shopping.

“We think it illustrates a problem that is more widespread,” Brown said. His office has pursued more than 200 cases statewide involving prescription abuse by both doctors and patients.

Haim’s activities described by Brown Tuesday are separate from a fraudulently-obtained prescription Haim may have obtained. That prescription for the painkiller Oxycontin was found during an investigation into a ring that illegally obtained prescription pads and used the stolen identities of doctors to fill them out.

The pills Brown said Haim obtained in the two months before his death included 149 tablets of the painkiller Vicodin and 194 tablets of the muscle relaxant Soma. He also received 15 tablets of Xanax and 195 tablets of Valium, both of which are depressants, Brown said.

Haim, 38, died March 10 after collapsing in his mother’s apartment. Haim struggled with drugs throughout his life. He was also suffering from flulike symptoms before his death and his official cause of death has not been released.

Coroner’s officials have said they found four prescriptions in Haim’s name in the apartment where he collapsed, and all were prescribed by a doctor treating the actor.

Mark Heaslip, the actor’s agent, did not return a phone message seeking comment Tuesday.

Brown, who is running for governor of California, said the doctors who prescribed medications to Haim told investigators they felt duped. He said Haim was able to get the medications by complaining of specific symptoms, such as shoulder pain and that the actor also used emergency rooms and urgent care facilities to obtain the drugs.

He said investigators were able to find the medications obtained by Haim through a state database called CURES, which monitors prescriptions. The database is available to doctors and pharmacies, Brown said, but its use is voluntary.

Authorities on Tuesday released the 911 tape in actor Corey Haim’s sudden death at age 38, as family gathered in his home town of Toronto for a private funeral service for the former teen movie star.

Corey Feldman, who was Haim’s co-star in 1980s movies “The Lost Boys” and “License to Drive,” did not attend the funeral but released a statement remembering his friend, who died on March 10.

In the 911 tape, Haim’s mother, Judy, called paramedics from a Los Angeles apartment last week to report her son was not breathing and that he had been feeling ill.

“He all of a sudden got out of bed,” a distraught Judy Haim said in the tape. “He wanted to go to the bathroom and he fell on the floor and I put him on the bed and then that was it.”

Police have described Haim’s death as an apparent prescription drug overdose, but an official cause of death still awaits toxicology results.

Haim’s family and friends held a private funeral service for the star in Toronto on Tuesday, where the Canadian actor was born. The Toronto Star reported that about 200 relatives and friends attended, but Feldman was notably absent.

Feldman said in a statement on his website he stayed away to avoid bringing more media attention to the private service.

“I always feared this day would come, and often rehearsed how to face it,” Feldman wrote.

“But once confronted with the reality of it, it’s so much more painful than I could have ever imagined,” he said.

Haim and Feldman starred together three years ago in reality TV series “The Two Coreys”.

California Attorney General Jerry Brown has said his office is investigating a prescription drug ring linked to Haim’s sudden death.

Bosses at a memorabilia company have offered to pay Corey Haim’s funeral costs – after the tragic star’s relatives appealed to fans to help fund a proper memorial.

The Lost Boys star died of a suspected drug overdose in Los Angeles last Wednesday, and his family members revealed they were struggling to gather enough money to fly his body home to his native Canada.

They set up an online fund so fans could donate to Haim’s funeral costs, and began selling the late actor’s possessions on internet auction site eBay.com.

But now executives at Startifacts, the company helping to sell Haim’s belongings online, have offered to hand his mother a $20,000 check ahead of the memorial, instead of making her wait for all of the money to come through after the online auctions finish.

Haim will be buried in Toronto, Canada next week.

The name of the late actor Corey Haim was found on a fraudulent prescription for a powerful painkiller that authorities said Friday was obtained through a major drug ring.

California Attorney General Jerry Brown’s office said records of the prescription in the name of the former teen heartthrob were found during an investigation of the ring that illegally obtained prescription pads and used the stolen identities of doctors to fill them out.

“Corey Haim’s death is yet another tragedy linked to the growing problem of prescription drug abuse,” Brown said in a written statement. “This problem is increasingly linked to criminal organizations, like the illegal and massive prescription drug ring under investigation.”

Los Angeles County coroner’s officials, however, said they have not yet determined what killed the 38-year-old Haim on Wednesday.

State law enforcement authorities said they were investigating the drug ring and how the name of Haim, who battled addiction for years, appeared on the prescription.

Javier Salaiz, an investigator with the state attorney general’s office, said authorities have not yet confirmed that Haim actually filled the prescription or if someone was using his name to acquire the prescription.

However, a person familiar with the investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity because the case is ongoing said Haim may have been doctor shopping.

Assistant Chief Coroner Ed Winter said four prescription drug bottles bearing the actor’s name were found in the apartment where he collapsed, but all those drugs had been provided by a doctor who had been treating the actor.

The coroner’s office has declined to state what medications were discovered, but said no illegal drugs were found.

Winter said no determination had been made about Haim’s cause of death, and toxicology tests would not be available for at least a month.

He said he had not been contacted by the attorney general’s office.

“It surprises me that Jerry Brown would come out and give a cause of death,” he said.

Brown said later in an interview that he didn’t know what killed Haim.

The illegal prescription was for the powerful painkiller OxyContin, he said.

“This is a growing and dangerous problem,” Brown said.

Christine Gasparac, a spokeswoman for Brown, said the prescription was found through the state’s computer database that tracks prescriptions that are filled.

Investigators believe the ring either sells the pads on the street to addicts or to people who then fill out the forms and obtain the drugs for illegal distribution.

Doctors whose names are on the form usually aren’t aware that their identity is being used illegally.

So far, authorities have uncovered up to 5,000 fraudulent prescriptions linked to the fraud ring in Southern California.

Haim’s agent, Mark Heaslip, said his client’s medications were prescribed by an addiction specialist who was working with the actor. He said he thinks, based on what Haim’s mother has told him, the actor may have had an adverse reaction to the medication because he was ill.

“I don’t think Corey overdosed, not at all,” Heaslip said.

Authorities have said Haim was suffering from flulike symptoms in the days before his death.

Seattle-based Heaslip has served as Haim’s agent for 18 months but first met the actor, best known for his roles in the 1980s flicks “The Lost Boys” and “Lucas,” in November. He said Haim was poised for a comeback and showed no signs of addiction.

“He’s never given me a sign of that,” Heaslip said.

Plans are being completed for a public memorial for Haim in Los Angeles. The actor is expected to be buried at a private funeral in his native Canada, Heaslip said.

Brown’s office has made prescription drug abuse a priority. It worked with the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office to bring drug conspiracy charges against two doctors and the lawyer-boyfriend of Anna Nicole Smith.

Brown also has launched a probe of doctors whose names have come up during the investigation into the death of Michael Jackson.