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Cops Believe French Scholar Accidentally Overdosed

By Murray Weiss | April 5, 2012 3:29pm
French academic Richard Descoings, 54, was found dead at the Michelangelo Hotel on April 3, 2012.
French academic Richard Descoings, 54, was found dead at the Michelangelo Hotel on April 3, 2012.
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DNAinfo/Trevor Kapp

MANHATTAN — Investigators suspect the French academic found dead in bed in a Midtown hotel room accidentally overdosed on a combination of pills and alcohol, sources told DNAInfo.

Probers do not believe Richard Descoings, 54, of Paris, is the victim of foul play, but they have not ruled out suicide in the case.

An autopsy conducted by the Medical Examiner’s Office found that Descoings, of Paris, who heads up the esteemed political science school Sciences Po, where Dominique Strauss-Kahn once taught, was inconclusive. Authorities were awaiting results from toxicological tests.

Descoings was found naked in bed at the Michelangelo Hotel on West 51st Street Tuesday. Pills and alcohol were found in the room.

Richard Descoings, the director of Sciences Po in France, was found dead at the Michelangelo Hotel in Midtown on April 3, 2012.
Richard Descoings, the director of Sciences Po in France, was found dead at the Michelangelo Hotel in Midtown on April 3, 2012.
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Sciences Po

Hotel security and housekeepers discovered his body after they were notified that Descoings had failed to show at a conference at Columbia University. 

During an earlier housekeeping check on his room that morning, Descoings was seemingly asleep and snoring, according to sources.

The sources said two men, both in their mid 30s, stopped by the academic's room for an hour the night before his body was found.

Police were getting close to identifying them, and were hoping to speak with them, according to the sources.

The duo could shed light on another mysterious aspect to the case — Descoings’ cell phone and computer were apparently tossed out of his room and found by police on a third-floor landing of the hotel.