The late actor Corey Haim had 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 Haim, who battled addiction for years, obtained the prescription.

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.

Grief hits people in different ways. Some keep to themselves, some take to Twitter. Following the news of former child star Corey Haim’s death, celebrities expressed their sadness in 140 characters or less. Below is a sampling of the most interesting.

Colson Whitehead, novelist (most recently of “Sag Harbor”):

“In honor of our fallen Corey, we should all sing David Bowie’s ‘Fame,’ substituting Haim where appropriate.”

What happens when you make a roadside attraction out of a human being? How do you take a guy who’s spent a lifetime shaking off the vulnerability and ego omnipotence that often comes with child stardom, a guy who struggles with drugs, says he was sexually abused, who’s clearly on shaky emotional ground, and put him back in front of the camera with his longtime friend and foe?

Watching this footage from “The Two Coreys,” a show built around the decaying relationship and revived career hopes of Corey Haim and Corey Feldman, will make you wonder about the practice of pointing cameras in the faces of exactly those people who are destined to get confused, say too much, and regret it. Corey Haim was allegedly troubled long before (and presumably after) these scenes were shot, and his judgment (and Feldman’s) doesn’t appear that sound.

Corey Haim’s death from an apparent overdose at 38 is incredibly sad, but it certainly isn’t surprising to those who followed his career, and troubles, for nearly three decades. He long ago emerged as a Gen X poster child for the dangers of fame in a celebrity-obsessed culture. His battle with substance abuse was its own kind of reality drama, playing out in the tabloids, in interviews that re-surfaced on YouTube and, eventually, his own reality show.

The Los Angeles coroner’s office says “The Lost Boys” actor Corey Haim is dead at 38.

Coroner’s Lt. Cheryl MacWillie said Wednesday that Haim died at 2:15 a.m. at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank. She said an autopsy will determine the cause of death and there are no other details.

Canadian-born Haim became a teen heartthrob with the 1986 film “Lucas” and 1987′s “The Lost Boys.”

His first role was in the 1984 hit “Firstborn,” in which he played a young child caught up in a family war. He then appeared in the 1985 television movie “A Time to Live.”

In recent years, he appeared in the A&E reality TV show “The Two Coreys” with his friend Corey Feldman. It was canceled in 2008 after two seasons.