Inside Andrew Koppel's Troubled Life

Andrew Koppel had a long history of alcohol abuse, but friends remember him as a brilliant and "genuine nice guy" who had—they thought—successfully moved past the troubles of his youth. His death Monday left more questions than answers, and Belinda Caban, in whose apartment he was found, tells the New York Post, "I think he did take" drugs during his daylong drinking binge, "because he was too out of it."

Koppel had two DUIs by age 21, and once punched a senatorial aide while drunk. But the lawyer turned his life around and was "a great dad" with a second baby on the way, a neighbor tells the New York Daily News. Friends don't recall much drinking recently, but one source spotted him drinking "a lot of beer" alone at a hotel last year, and another saw Koppel—"out of his mind drunk"—driving off on his motorcycle after being cut off by a bartender.
(More Andrew Koppel stories.)