French Scholar Found in Michelangelo Hotel Died of Heart Attack, M.E. Says

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

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Sciences Po

MANHATTAN — A French academic found dead in a Midtown hotel room in April died of a heart attack, the Medical Examiner's office said Wednesday.

Richard Descoings, 45, was discovered naked in a bed in the Michelangelo Hotel on West 51st Street on April 3. Probers did not believe that Descoings, of Paris, was the victim of foul play, but couldn't rule out suicide as a possible cause of death because authorities found pills and alcohol in his room.

A spokeswoman for the Medical Examiner said toxicological tests revealed Tuesday that the French scholar died of a heart attack. An initial autopsy of the body was inconclusive.

Descoings headed the Institute of Political Studies in Paris. He was reportedly set to attend a conference at Columbia University, but never showed up.

Descoings also was the head of the esteemed political science school Sciences Po, where Dominique Strauss-Kahn once taught.

French academic Richard Descoings, 54, was found dead at the Michelangelo Hotel on April 3, 2012

DNAinfo/Trevor Kapp