Ted Koppel's son, 40, found dead in NYC apartment

NEW YORK -- A son of former ABC News anchor Ted Koppel was found dead in an apartment after a day of bar hopping with a man he'd just met, a law enforcement official said Tuesday.

A drunken Andrew Koppel, 40, had been placed in a back bedroom of the Manhattan apartment to sleep it off and apparently had been dead at least four hours before anyone realized, said Belinda Caban, who lives in the apartment.

He was declared dead around 1:30 a.m. Monday, New York Police Department Detective John Sweeney said. The cause of his death hadn't been determined, but no evidence indicated criminality, police said.

Ted Koppel is the former longtime anchor of the ABC News show "Nightline." Andrew Koppel was one of his four children. A telephone call to the elder Koppel's publicist wasn't immediately returned Tuesday.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an acquaintance of Ted Koppel, on Tuesday offered his condolences to the Koppel family.

"It's very sad," Bloomberg said. "I know Ted casually, and I don't know how anybody deals with losing a child."

Andrew Koppel, who lived in Queens, had been drinking heavily during the day with Russell Wimberly, whom he met at a bar, the law enforcement official said. The official spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the investigation into the death wasn't completed.

Koppel was appointed attorney for the city Housing Authority's civil litigation division in 2001 and resigned the post in 2008, the agency said Tuesday. 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.

An autopsy was performed Monday, but results were pending further study, including toxicology and tissue testing, medical examiner's office spokeswoman Ellen Borakove said. Additional tests were needed to determine the manner and cause of death, and they will take a few weeks to complete.