Heath Ledger Cocaine Video Lawsuit

Heath Ledger was secretly video taped as he snorted the drug in a hotel room two years ago.

By: Rob Adams
Apr 12, 2008, 9:56 AM EDT

The lawsuit, filed on Friday against a Hollywood photo agency, says footage of the Heath Ledger encounter was taped by two of its photographers who allegedly supplied the actor the drug. The hidden video was secretly taped in a hotel room two years ago.

The Los Angeles-area Splash News & Picture Agency is accused of paying for cocaine that was allegedly used in 2006 by two of its photographers to entice Ledger, widely reported to have struggled with substance abuse.

Portions of the video aired briefly on two US television shows days after Ledger's death in January which prompted an outcry in Hollywood. The tape was sold to media outlets around the world, some in Australia and Britain.

"This is bad stuff. You don't give drug addicts drugs so you can then tape them," said Douglas Johnson, an attorney for the plaintiff, who is named in the suit only as Jane Doe, a former freelance reporter for People magazine.

The suit claims the video has generated more than $1 million in revenues that should be forfeited under a California state law that requires paparazzi to disgorge any profits obtained illegally.

Ledger, shown in the tape snorting the drug, was recorded on January 29, 2006, at the Chateau Marmont hotel on Hollywood's Sunset Strip, where the actor was attending an "after-party" following his winning of the Screen Actors Guild Award for "Brokeback Mountain."

The suit describes her as an unwitting accomplice of the two photographers, one of whom she was dating at the time.

Best known for his Oscar-nominated role as a conflicted gay cowboy in the 2005 movie "Brokeback Mountain," Ledger died of an accidental overdose of prescription drugs in his New York apartment on January 22.