The mysterious death here of a prominent Russian businessman and former government minister last year was an accident caused by a drunken fall inside his hotel room, the prosecutor’s office announced on Friday as investigators officially closed the case.
The death of Mikhail Y. Lesin, who once played an influential role in President Vladimir V. Putin’s control of the news media in Russia, generated significant attention because of the proximity he had to the Kremlin and the unexpected loss of favor before his self-imposed exile in the United States.
For months, speculation swirled that Mr. Lesin was murdered, perhaps by a commercial rival or, more ominously, as a warning to those who betrayed the Kremlin. While no evidence ever emerged supporting either theory, speculation intensified when the city’s medical examiner in March attributed his death to blunt trauma to his head, neck, limbs and torso.
Now, nearly a year later, the authorities have settled on a more prosaic tale, determining that he died from injuries sustained after a bout of drinking. He was 57.
“Based on the evidence, including video footage and witness interviews, Mr. Lesin entered his hotel room on the morning of Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2015, after days of excessive consumption of alcohol and sustained the injuries that resulted in his death while alone in his hotel room,” said a statement by the United States attorney for the District of Columbia.
The medical examiner, which had described the manner of death as “undetermined,” revised its finding to “accident” with “acute ethanol intoxication” as a contributing factor.
The fatal injury, the statement on Friday said, came from “blunt force injuries” to Mr. Lesin’s head caused by a fall or falls inside the room. The other injuries to his neck, limbs and torso were cited as contributing factors, but the statement did not make it clear if they occurred at the hotel or earlier outside. Officials with the prosecutor’s office declined to discuss the findings.
Mr. Lesin had come to Washington to attend an awards banquet held by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Washington’s West End neighborhood two nights before he died. He did not show up for the event, though. Nor did he contact the man who had invited him, a prominent Russian banker and philanthropist, Pyotr O. Aven.
Mr. Lesin spent the last day of his life inside his room at the Dupont Circle Hotel, having arrived at 10:48 in the morning. He was found dead in his room the next morning, Nov. 5.
Over the last year, the case seemed to stump investigators, who struggled to piece together his visit to Washington. The F.B.I. ultimately assisted the investigation, but officials almost from the start seemed to play down the possibility of foul play, either local or foreign.
Even now, the ruling might not end the speculation about the case.
“Given the murders of a number of Putin critics and others who know the inner workings of the Kremlin, like Lesin, it’s hard to rule out foul play in his death,” said David J. Kramer, director of human rights at the McCain Institute for International Leadership in Washington, who closely monitors Russia. “But that says more about the regime in Moscow than about D.C. authorities’ conclusions in this case.”
The state news media in Russia at the time swiftly declared Mr. Lesin’s death a heart attack, but his acquaintances also noted his heavy drinking. A business partner, Sergei A. Vasilyev, told the newspaper Kommersant shortly after his death that Mr. Lesin had met friends from Russia who lived in Washington and had been drinking heavily.
Mr. Vasilyev said Mr. Lesin would sometimes behave recklessly when intoxicated, including instances when “he fell and caused involuntary injury to himself, including quite heavily,” a description that coincides with the authorities’ latest finding.
Mr. Lesin became the minister of the press in 1999, in the twilight of Boris N. Yeltsin’s presidency, and became an instrumental player in Mr. Putin’s efforts during his first term as president to wrest control of national television networks from the tycoons who ran them.
Mr. Lesin went on to serve as a senior presidential adviser in the Kremlin and in 2005 started Russia Today, the country’s first all-news television network broadcasting in English. Known today as RT, the network has become an important weapon in the information war the Kremlin believes it is fighting against hostile governments and the news media in the West.
Mr. Lesin left government for a time, but after Mr. Putin assumed the presidency for a contentious third term in 2012, he returned to run the media arm of the state-run natural gas monopoly, Gazprom, which was controlled by one of Mr. Putin’s confidants, Yuri V. Kovalchuk. Mr. Kovalchuk and his Bank Rossiya each face sanctions by the United States for ties to Mr. Putin.
When Mr. Lesin, through shell companies, began buying up properties in and around Los Angeles, Senator Roger Wicker, Republican of Mississippi, called on the Justice Department to investigate possible wrongdoing under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and questioned Mr. Lesin’s ties to Mr. Kovalchuk.
Shortly afterward, Mr. Lesin stepped down from Gazprom Media, traveled frequently to Los Angeles and had remained out of public view until a housekeeper found his body in the hotel room.
NY TIMES
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