Top

Ted Koppel

June 1, 2010 by · Comments Off on Ted Koppel 

Ted KoppelKoppel Son Dies After a Bender:The son of legendary television journalist Ted Koppel was found dead in an apartment in Washington Heights in mysterious circumstances yesterday morning after a binge all day with a man she had met at a bar in Midtown, police sources said.

Andrew Koppel, 40, of Rockaway Park, Queens, was pronounced dead at 1:30 am after paramedics were called to the house in brief what a police source called “s – -” building at 180th Street on Audubon Avenue, where he was found unconscious and not breathing in a bedroom, officials said.

Koppel – who was a lawyer for the Housing Authority of the city – was a mess drooling when he was taken to the house around 11 pm by Russell Wimberly, a waiter of 32 years who had met at a bar in Hell’s Kitchen almost 12 hours earlier.

Koppel “was really in bad shape when he entered, he was very drunk,” Belinda said Caban, 53, who lives in the apartment.

Caban, who called for a drinking buddy Wimberly, told the Post: “I do not understand anything [Koppel] said. We took him to the room and laid him to rest.”

After a couple of hours, she and Wimberly discovered that he had urinated and defecated on the bed and seemed not to breathe. They called 911.

“Her complexion was not right. He was pale. I told him to call the police,” said Caban. “When the ambulance arrived, said he was dead.”

Nobody has been charged, and the medical examiner has yet to determine the cause of death.

Koppel – who lived with his girlfriend and their newborn daughter – began his bender around noon in the Smith’s Bar & Restaurant on 44th Street and Ninth Avenue, where he became friends with Wimberly.

“I had a straw hat, and I had one, and he said:” Nice hat, man, ‘”recalled Wimberly.” We started talking, and he began to buy drinks. ”

Koppel drank whiskey and suggested that they move from bar to bar, Wimberly said.

As they walked, Koppel drank a bottle of Jameson, Wimberly said.

“There was a lot of alcohol. Do not take anything more [drug] around me, and none of us ate all day,” he said. “We talked about our children … He said he had a child and loved [her] a lot.

Finally, they took a taxi to the apartment Caban, stopping at a liquor store to pick up a bottle of whiskey and beer.

Koppel “not feeling well. I told him to lay down and turn off the light. He was snoring too strong. I was,” said Wimberly.

Koppel was the third youngest of four children of Ted Koppel and his wife, Grace Anne. He was her only child.

His father, former anchor of ABC’s “Nightline” could not be reached for comment.

the older sister of Andres Koppel, Andrea, a former CNN correspondent, declined comment. Her younger sister, Tara, was seen crying in her apartment in Manhattan. She also did not want to talk.

Andrew Koppel was convicted in 1993 of punching a Senate aide on a binge of dust in DC and was ordered into alcohol treatment. Three years earlier, got into a fender bender while driving drunk Mercedes from his father in his home state of Maryland.

Source: NYPost

Bottom