Testimony Focuses on Cocaine Detected in Hugh O’Connor

Carroll O’Connor’s son took “a lot” of cocaine on the day before his suicide but no alcohol was found in his blood, a Los Angeles coroner’s official testified Monday at the actor’s slander trial.

Los Angeles County criminalist Robert Budd delivered toxicology results as O’Connor’s lawyers tried to counter Harry Perzigian’s earlier testimony that he brought a bottle of rum--but no cocaine--to the actor’s son the night before his death.

Police Det. Brad Roberts said he searched Hugh O’Connor’s residence after his death but did not find a bottle of rum.

Perzigian, 41, is suing the star of TV’s “All in the Family” for slander over O’Connor’s widely televised descriptions of Perzigian as a “sleazeball” and “a partner in murder” for providing his son with cocaine.

Hugh O’Connor, 32, had a long struggle with addiction. He shot himself after a series of phone calls filled with despair to his father.

Perzigian, who was convicted of furnishing cocaine to Hugh O’Connor, has said he did not sell drugs to him but did split the cost for narcotics supplies. They were friends for many years, he testified.

Another police witness, Det. Steven Galeria, said investigators found cocaine and a scale at Perzigian’s Brentwood condominium the day after the March 28, 1995 suicide.