The girlfriend of Dr. Conrad Murray will be asked questions that she previously declined to answer for police investigating Murray in a manslaughter probe related to Michael Jackson's death.

Prosecutors investigating Jackson's death have called Nicole Alvarez to testify before a grand jury today, according to the woman's lawyer and sources familiar with the matter.

The Los Angeles County district attorney's office is asking the grand jury only to take testimony from Nicole Alvarez and that the panel is not being asked "at this time" to determine whether Dr. Conrad Murray should be charged with a crime, the sources said.

Murray has been identified in court papers as the target of a manslaughter probe related to Jackson's death, and the sources told The Times that his girlfriend, a 27-year-old actress, has not been cooperating with detectives.

The prosecutors are using the grand jury's subpoena power to ask Alvarez questions that she declined to answer for police, according to the sources, who spoke on the condition that they not be named because the investigation is ongoing.

This summer, police searched the apartment where Alvarez lives with the couple's infant son, but she was not forthcoming with detectives, the sources said.

Alvarez's attorney, Joseph Low IV of Long Beach said, "We are definitely going to cooperate," and he disputed the characterization of Alvarez as uncooperative.

Low said he would be "surprised" if Alvarez knew anything useful to investigators.

A spokeswoman for the district attorney's office, Jane Robison, said: "We cannot comment on whether there is or is not a grand jury proceeding."

The Los Angeles County coroner's office determined that Jackson died from "acute propofol intoxication" combined with sedatives, and labeled his death a homicide.

Murray contends through his lawyer that he did nothing wrong.

Source: LA times.com