Odom drug charges dropped

Ex-NBAer leaves hospital for private facility

LAS VEGAS • Lamar Odom won’t be charged with any drug counts after the former NBA star was found unconscious last year at a Nevada brothel with cocaine in his system, prosecutors said Monday.

Evidence in the case did not prove that Odom used the drug during his three days in Nye County, so he could not be charged with unlawful use of cocaine or being under the influence of a controlled substance — the felony count recommended by the sheriff ’s office, District Attorney Angela Bello said.

Odom wasn’t in possession of any cocaine and the cocaine discovered in his system had already metabolized — making it difficult to determine the time he had used it — when he was hospitalized on Oct. 13 in extremely critical condition in Las Vegas, Bello said.

It’s “unlikely it could ( be) established beyond a reasonable doubt he actually ingested, or was impaired by, the drug during the time he was within the jurisdiction of Nye County,” she said in a statement.

Investigators have not directly contacted Odom but worked with his attorney, Blair Berk, a prominent celebrity lawyer in California who declined to comment on the decision by prosecutors.

Bello said no other recommended charges have been sent to her office involving the situation.

Odom’s blood was tested the same night he was taken to Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center in Las Vegas. The sheriff ’s office later recommended the felony count.

Odom’s estranged wife, Khloe Kardashian, and members of her famous reality television family were in Las Vegas soon after Odom was hospitalized. He was later transferred to a Los Angeles hospital.

The Odom family said Friday he had left the Los Angeles hospital for a private facility.

Family s pokeswoman Alvina Alston declined to comment on the decision by Bello or on Odom’s condition. She previously termed his recovery as “miraculous and continued i mprovement.”

Odom spent most of his 14- year NBA career in Los Angeles with the Lakers and Clippers.

He married Kardashian, appeared i n her family’s Keeping Up with The Kardashians show and then starred in the Khloe and Lamar spinoff.

They split up amid rumours of cheating.

Brothel owner Dennis Hof said Odom spent US$75,000 on two women who accompanied him in a VIP suite at Love Ranch brothel in Crystal, Nev., where he was found unconscious.