Sideshow: Koppel's son found dead after drinking binge

Ted Koppel's son, Andrew Koppel, was found dead in an upper Manhattan apartment Monday after what the New York Post delicately describes as "a daylong drinking binge."

by By Tirdad Derakhshani, Inquirer Staff Writer | Columnist

Published Jun. 2, 2010, 3:01 a.m. ET

Ted Koppel

's son,

Andrew Koppel

, was found dead in an upper Manhattan apartment Monday after what the New York Post delicately describes as "a daylong drinking binge."

Police on Tuesday said Koppel, 40, an attorney for New York's Housing Authority, who lived with his girlfriend and baby daughter, spent the day bar-hopping with a man he befriended at a bar that afternoon.

The man, Russell Wimberly, tells the Post he and Koppel drank well into the night and that neither man had anything to eat all day. The pair eventually ended up at an apartment belonging to a Wimberly friend, Belinda Caban.

Wimberly says Koppel appeared to be sleeping it off, but wasn't breathing when he and Caban checked on him some time later.

An autopsy has been performed, but a cause of death won't be released until results are in from a toxicology report. Police say they found no signs of foul play.

Ted Koppel and his wife, Grace Anne Dorney Koppel, issued a brief statement through a representative Tuesday: "Our son, Andrew, was a brilliant, caring man, whose loss we will mourn for the rest of our lives."

Sheen to go behind bars?

Anon sources tell People.com and TMZ that

Charlie Sheen

and prosecutors in Aspen, Colo., have reached a plea deal in the actor's assault case, which will have him plead guilty to misdemeanor assault and serve 30 days in jail.

Sheen, 44, who is accused of assaulting his wife, Brooke Mueller, 32, on Christmas, will have a hearing Monday. TMZ says he has been ordered to complete 36 hours of anger management by then. (He's done 10 hours so far.)

Larry King and Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga

says she does not suffer from lupus, but she might. Or not?

"I have tested borderline positive for the disease," Ms. Gaga tells CNN's avuncular sex symbol, Larry King, in a chat that was to air Tuesday.

But, she adds, "so, as of right now I do not have it." Her Gagaship reveals that late pop prince Michael Jackson had asked her to open for him in his never-to-be comeback shows in London. (She's that important.) And she waxes philosophical on sexual politics: "No person is worth any less than another human being based on their sexual orientation."

Bradley Cooper's manly manhood

"People thought I was a girl when I was little, because I looked like a girl." So says

Hangover

actor

Bradley Cooper

in the new Details mag. The Rydal native says he had a hard time growing up as a boy who was a boy but didn't look like one.

But his hardship made him a great artist, says the mag: "His adolescence engendered in him an insecurity that made him self-critical to the point of becoming a perfectionist."

Cooper says he was shocked at how manly he looks in the A-Team remake. "It was so [bleep] surreal," he says, " 'cause as a kid I only fantasized about looking that way."

Tidbits 'n' pieces

TMZ says a dastardly criminal stole thousands of dollars worth of clothes from the Hollywood wardrobe office of

Jay Leno

The

Tonight Show

. The missing threads were discovered when Jay's band showed up to be fitted with their new outfits. . . .

Jersey Shore

star

The Situation

has such awesome six-pack abs, they've been branded a dangerous weapon. TMZ says this weekend, the dude caused such a stir dancing topless at an outdoor club in Seaside Heights - more than 3,000 people gathered in the streets to catch sight of him - that cops ordered him to put his shirt back on. . . .

Guy Ritchie

and his household servants thwarted an alleged burglar Sunday at the filmmaker's $13 mil country estate in England and held him until police arrived. Authorities say they continue to investigate the case. . . .

Kirsten Dunst

, 28, testified in a New York court Tuesday in the trial of a mechanic named

James Jimenez

who allegedly helped steal the

Spider-Man

star's $2,000 Balenciaga handbag from a Manhattan hotel suite during the '07 movie shoot of

How to Lose Friends & Alienate People

. Dunst eventually recovered the bag - minus $2,000 in cash it contained.

Aerosmith announce tour

Aerosmith

front man

Steven Tyler

has his mojo back! The band will launch an 18-city tour beginning July 23 in Oakland, Calif. They'll play Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City with opener