Son of Ted Koppel found dead at 40

[Dennis Donovan]

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/koppel_son_LNjqoiEfi8DCtPkX0hxBNI

The son of legendary TV newsman Ted Koppel was found dead in a Washington Heights apartment under mysterious circumstances yesterday morning after a daylong drinking binge with a man he had just met in a Midtown bar, law-enforcement sources said.

Andrew Koppel, 40, of Rockaway Park, Queens, was declared dead at around 1:30 a.m. after paramedics were called to the rundown apartment in what a law-enforcement source called a "s- - - building" on 180th Street at Audubon Avenue, where he had been found unconscious and not breathing in a bedroom, the sources said.

Koppel -- who was an attorney for the city Housing Authority -- was a slobbering mess when he was brought to the apartment at around 11 p.m. by Russell Wimberly, a 32-year-old waiter he had met at a Hell's Kitchen bar nearly 12 hours earlier.

Koppel "was just really messed up when he came in. He was very drunk," said Belinda Caban, 53, who lives at the apartment.

Caban, who called Wimberly a drinking buddy, told The Post: "I didn't understand anything said. We took him to the bedroom and laid him down to rest."

After a couple of hours, she and Wimberly discovered he had urinated and defecated in the bed and appeared not to be breathing. They called 911.</snip>

Tragic news for the Koppel family...:(

[UndertheOcean]

1. Yes , Alcohol will actually KILL you , yet it is the legal drug.

does not make sense at all , poor chap.

[Fumesucker]

3. Hell, alcohol *withdrawal* will kill you..

I'm so glad I never really cared for alcohol..

Just imagine if Mr Koppel had died from an illegal drug overdose, this story would be screamed from every media outlet.

But dying from alcohol gets a big yawn from the media and the government.

[Dorian Gray]

2. Oh Gosh....

how horrifying and sad.

It sounds like he got alcohol poisoning and died. So sad.

[rocktivity]

11. I thought I had alcohol poisioning

Fortunately, the party in the hotel where I was staying. I made it back to my room, but I watched TV for two hours instead of going to bed because I felt that if I went to sleep, I wouldn't wake up again.

:headbang:
rocktivity

[JVS]

4. " the rundown apartment in what a law-enforcement source called a "s- - - building" "

Shit building? Is that the technical term?

[rocktivity]

5. Washington Heights Manhattan and Rockaway Park Queens

Are 30 miles apart -- in more ways than one. Sounds like there were some extracurricular activities on their agenda--or maybe just a drug buy.

Reminds me of when one of the Kennedy boys was busted buying drugs in Harlem.

:(
rocktivity

[Berry Cool]

6. This is such a horrible sad story

and yet another example of ignorant, probably also-drunk people contributing to the death of a fellow drunk person by "putting him to bed and hoping he sleeps it off."

Many times, people who are drunk and "put to bed" by their companions before they get all the alcohol out of their systems die of alcohol poisoning or suffocate in their own vomit.

[Rhiannon12866]

7. K&R. How terrible and sad.

In AA they say that, over time, alcoholism leads to jail, institutions and death. Poor Andrew Koppel skipped way ahead. ;(

[rocktivity]

8. Koppel's pregnant partner calls death a 'devastating tragedy'

Koppel was cremated Tuesday, a person close to him said...His cause of death remained unclear, pending the results of toxicology and tissue testing, said a spokeswoman for the city's medical examiner.
How could the body have been released for cremation without knowing the exact cause of death? I guess you can if you're famous.

Koppel was busted three times for alcohol-related crimes in his teens and early 20s...(He) graduated from Georgetown University's law school and went on to work for the Legal Aid Society in the city. He worked at the Housing Authority for seven years until he resigned in 2008. In recent years, Koppel was teaching at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice - and still drinking heavily in private...
I think I have the cause of death--being the underachieving child of an overachieving parent.

link

:(
rocktivity

[Sebastian Doyle]

9. I'm really not trying to make a tasteless joke here, but......

Would having an excessive amount of alcohol in the body make the cremation faster?

[Fumesucker]

10. If it was suspected he died of an illegal drug overdose the body would not have been released..

And it would be all over the news non stop.

[rocktivity]

12. I'm sure that would be true in the case of us mere mortals

but the child of a celeb could get the coverup treatment--especially given the circumstances under which the body was found.

On edit: I rest my case.

In 1989, (Andrew Koppel) was convicted of speeding and driving under the influence in Montgomery County, Md. He was acquitted of the DUI charge on appeal.

Two years later, he slammed his father's 1990 red Mercedes-Benz 300SL into the back of another car in Montgomery County and fled the scene. Koppel, an American University student at the time, was charged with DWI and leaving the scene of the accident. A judge tossed the charges.

In 1993, Koppel was hit with assault charges for punching out a senator's aide named Patrick Ahearn in Washington. A jury found him guilty of simple assault, and he served a year of probation.

By that point, Koppel was a Georgetown law student. He graduated in 1997, moved to the city and passed the bar in 1998.
link


:headbang:
rocktivity

[Fumesucker]

14. Think about it though, a celeb dying of ILLEGAL DRUGZ!!!..

It would be plastered all over the news, they couldn't hide it..

I agree that celebs get away with stuff that mere mortals don't but one dying of illegal drugs would be a huge story.

I mean, who was Anna Nicole Smith, really? And yet the story took over the news for a great deal of time and it wasn't really even illegal drugs.

If she had drunk herself to death it would have been a minor blip on the news.

[xchrom]

13. what a sad messy way to go. nt