OTHER NEWS - May 18, 1994

Coroner Finds High Drug, Alcohol Level in Lazard’s Body: The chairman and chief executive of W.R. Lazard & Co., Wall Street’s biggest black-owned money management firm, appears to have been drunk and high on cocaine when he died, a coroner said. Wardell Lazard’s blood alcohol level measured more than 0.25%, and toxicology tests indicated a white substance found near his body was 83% or more cocaine. The findings support investigators’ speculations that Lazard, 44, whose naked body was found last Wednesday on a bed in a Pittsburgh hotel, died of an accidental overdose. An empty vodka bottle was on a table at the foot of the bed, the coroner’s office said.