Defense: abuse at fault

An expert says a man died of chronic cocaine use, not because of drugs sold by the accused.

By JUSTIN GEORGE
Published July 18, 2007

TAMPA - Under a microscope, businessman Andrew Culver had the heart of a chronic cocaine abuser. Old heart damage and new drug use may have combined to kill him in November 2005.

That's what a defense expert said Tuesday at the federal trial of a man accused of selling the drugs that led to Culver's death.

Brandon Erwin, 30, a former part-time host of the Blue Martini nightclub in International Plaza, is charged with selling Culver, 35, cocaine and the prescription painkiller methadone.

Given his first opportunity to present a defense, Erwin's lawyer, Donald West, poked holes in the prosecution's assertion that a combined overdose of the two drugs killed Culver. His body was found in a room at the Marriott Renaissance Hotel.

Volusia County Chief Medical Examiner Marie Herrmann, a defense-hired expert, cast doubt on the findings of the Hillsborough County Medical Examiner's Office. If Culver had died of a drug overdose, she said, his lungs would have weighed about 1,000 grams or more. Culver's lungs weighed less than 800 grams during an autopsy.

She also found that the left side of his heart was enlarged, which can be caused by chronic cocaine use.

But her strongest testimony came when she showed jurors pictures of a section of Culver's heart muscle under a microscope.

She showed them normal dark pink parts surrounded by abnormal light pink areas indicating that Culver's heart had old injuries. She also pointed to areas where the heart was repairing dead muscle. Culver had a known history of cocaine abuse.

These factors, she said, told her that he died of a combination of recent and past cocaine use.

[Last modified July 17, 2007, 23:31:47]