RAW DEAL? Sands and client Lutfi (inset)

On Feb. 15, celebrity website TMZ blasted out an "exclusive" story citing LAPD sources who said its Major Crimes Division had launched a criminal investigation into Lutfi for allegedly drugging Spears. That's news to the LAPD. (Was the source a Detective McNulty, by chance?)

"We don't have anything," a spokesperson for the LAPD tells Radar. Then she put us on hold and rang the Major Crimes Department to double check but returned a few minutes later to confirm that the department is not investigating Lutfi. She vowed to look further into the claim to see if any division was investigating Lutfi but said, "I don't see any concrete evidence of a report on file. I don't even know if there's a crime that has occurred."

TMZ claimed Sands was aware of the investigation, but Sands has since blasted out e-mails to media calling the TMZ report dead wrong. "I suggest that TMZ and others know what they are speaking about before writing stories," Sands wrote earlier today. He says TMZ chief Harvey Levin had told him about the alleged investigation before others at TMZ called asking for comment. "I was playing along," he says. Taking it a step further, Sands tells Radar that he has spoken to first responders at Spears house Jan. 31, when she was rushed to a hospital after allegedly staying up five days and acting erratically, and they say it was Lutfi who called them to come get Brit. "Sam was the one who set up the police coming there and initiated Britney being taken to UCLA [medical center]," Sands tells Radar.

What's more, Sands says Lynne Spears—who first alleged Lutfi drugged Britney and claimed in the restraining order against him that he "inserted himself into my daughter's life, home, and finances"—had Lutfi help her negotiate a deal to hawk fake gems for a company called Diamond Hybrid. "I don't know why Lynne now wants to poison the world against Sam," Sands says.

Messages left for Diamond Hybrid's owner Steven Read were not immediately returned.