Los Angeles County coroner's office officials are investigating security breaches that have resulted in Michael Jackson's death certificate being viewed hundreds of times by staffers, some of whom are reported to have printed out copies of the document before it became a public record. Officials have also revealed that a computer system containing the death investigation reports on Jackson was also improperly secured.

The Los Angeles Times reports that despite warnings from the coroner's office to stop the practice, at least a half-dozen unnamed staffers are said to have accessed the singer's certificate more than 300 times within two weeks of his June 25 death.

"There's only one person in the investigation of Mr. Jackson who needed to have a copy of the death certificate, and that was the investigator," Craig Harvey, chief coroner investigator, told the paper. Some staffers reportedly printed copies of the document even after coroner's officials told employees earlier this month to stop accessing the certificate, warning that they had already been put on notice about the security hold on the prominent investigation.

Harvey said any access to the Electronic Death Registration System for personal use was "not appropriate." In a July 9 e-mail obtained by the Times, a coroner's captain told staffers that future abuses of the system would result in disciplinary action. Those who'd printed out copies of the document were advised to destroy it.

Though Harvey said he has not contacted any law-enforcement officials about the security breach — since he thinks only internal rules, not any laws, were broken — he was concerned to learn about the inappropriate viewing of the document after receiving a tip alleging that a funeral-home employee had created a fake death certificate for Jackson in the computerized system.

Harvey didn't find any fake death certificates, but he did find the names of coroner's employees who had looked at the official certificate despite not being involved in the investigation. While anyone with a state-issued password can gain access to the state-supervised EDRS, coroner's employees are supposed to look up cases "strictly in the performance of [your] official coroner duties," Harvey warned in an e-mail from earlier this month.

In a security failure that could end up being even more serious, Harvey said his office has also had trouble locking down two computer systems in which they've been keeping Jackson's death investigation reports. Both the coroner's office and the Los Angeles Police Department have been conducting an investigation into the circumstances surrounding Jackson's death, with both participating in a search on Wednesday of the Houston offices of Dr. Conrad Murray, Jackson's personal doctor at the time of his death.

While the reports on Jackson's death have been locked from day one, barring any employee below the rank of captain or higher from accessing them, Harvey said vulnerabilities in the computer system were discovered that might have allowed employees to get unauthorized access.

As coroner's office officials await the final toxicology reports on Jackson's death, due within the next 10 days, it appears increasingly as if the case could become a criminal matter. During the search on Wednesday at Murray's office, the doctor's lawyer said that officials were seeking evidence that could result in charges of manslaughter in the case.