The son of Ted Koppel overdosed on a lethal combination of drugs and alcohol, the medical examiner’s office said Friday. Andrew Koppel’s May 31 death was ruled an accident. He died from acute intoxication due to the combined effects of alcohol; heroin; cocaine; diazepam and Levamisole, a drug used to cut other drugs, said Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the city medical exmainer’s office – Police had said no criminality was suspected.
The 40-year-old Koppel had been out most of May 30 drinking heavily with waiter Russell Wimberly. Wimberly, who initially said they had met for the first time that day, said Friday they had known each other about a month. He would not comment further. Koppel was eventually taken up to an apartment to sleep it off, said Belinda Caban, who lives there and said she didn’t know Koppel. Caban told The Associated Press earlier this month that she and Wimberly spent the next few hours talking, and he went in to check on Koppel and said he was snoring. After six hours, she told Wimberly it was time to go and for him to take Koppel home. She said when they went to the bedroom to rouse Koppel, he wasn’t moving, so they called 911. She said paramedics estimated Koppel had been dead for four hours.
Koppel had problems with alcohol in his youth. He was arrested at least twice on DUI charges in Maryland in 1989 and 1991, and in one of the incidents he was in a car accident. In 1994, while a student at Georgetown Law School, he was convicted of misdemeanor assault for striking a U.S. Senate aide during an argument at a Capitol Hill cash machine. But his friends and neighbors said he had turned his life around, and they were surprised at his death. Well obviously he hadn’t turned his life around since he was drinking heavily as well as taking coke and heroin! What kills these people – the children of the rich and famous – is that they have such ready access to money. Normal junkies and boozers are often constrained, and thus saved from overdose deaths, by lack of funds. But you can be sure that Andrew Koppel never had to stop drinking or drugging due to a lack of cash. These parents who provide access to steady streams of cash for their children really ought to examine whether they are doing these children more harm than good. Especially when these kids have proven, as did Andrew, that they have serious substance abuse issues.
