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Sylvie Cachay's Autopsy Results Ordered Sealed

By DNAinfo Staff on February 8, 2011 1:15pm

By Shayna Jacobs

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

MANHATTAN SUPREME COURT — Slain swimsuit designer Sylvie Cachay's autopsy report will remain under seal indefinitely as the murder trial against her boyfriend Nicholas Brooks proceeds, a Manhattan judge ruled Tuesday.

"We're going to put the autopsy under protective order to be used by defense counsel, the DA and any experts that are hired to examine it," Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Bonnie Wittner said.

A lawyer for Brooks, the trust-fund son of a disgraced Oscar-winning songwriter, said his own experts would take a look at the cause of death and other conclusions in the autopsy, in what could indicate a possible intention to challenge the evidence.

"We have to get our own people to review it to see if we're going to fight it," attorney Jeffrey Hoffman said after the brief proceeding Tuesday.

The city's medical examiner concluded in its initial autopsy results that Cachay was strangled and drowned in her room at the SoHo House on Dec. 9. A subsequent autopsy revealed the results of her toxicology tests, to measure whether there was any trace of drugs or alcohol in her system before her death, but those results have been withheld from the public and are now barred from being released under the judge's order.

Hoffman said both sides agreed to keep the autopsy results sealed for now. He did not elaborate on why they decided to do so.

A defense review of the autopsy results could prompt Brooks' lawyers to seek to reopen the argument about whether drugs allegedly taken by Cachay that night could have contributed to her death.

Brooks, who turned 25 on Tuesday, allegedly told police in his statement to them he had fed her Xanax pills at her apartment before he and she relocated to the SoHo House hotel after a fire started in Cachay's apartment bedroom.

Brooks has been held without bail since his arrest on Dec. 10.

He was indicted on a second-degree murder charge by a Manhattan grand jury after the medical examiner ruled Cachay's death a homicide on Dec. 29, weeks after the murder.

The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner said they would not reveal the toxicology results, as is normal practice by the office. 

Brooks' father, Joseph, 72, is charged with sexually abusing and raping women he lured to his Upper East Side apartment for auditions.

He has not yet been present at his son's court appearances.