SUSPECTED HEROIN OVERDOSE KILLS PARTYING DE ROTHSCHILD

Raphael de Rothschild, scion of one of the world's richest families, has
been found dead of a suspected heroin overdose on a pavement in a rundown
area of New York.

Mr de Rothschild, who was 23, is believed to have been at a party with
friends on 10th Avenue in the city's Chelsea section when he was taken ill.

Police said that after other friends at the party called an ambulance,
William Corbin, an executive with an internet company, helped his friend
downstairs to wait outside.

But by the time the ambulance arrived, Mr de Rothschild was dead.

A police spokesman said Mr Corbin was arrested and charged with possession
of heroin but he denied that.

"I was there on the pavement but that's it," Mr Corbin told the New York
Daily News. "That's all I know. I came walking up a little late. I wish I
could tell you what happened but, as I told the police, I really don't know."

Living in the same building on Fifth Avenue where Jackie Onassis had her
home, Mr de Rothschild was the grandson of Elie de Rothschild, one of the
stalwarts of the French side of a financial dynasty that once held the
purse strings of Europe.

Elie had a tempestuous relationship with the late Pamela Harriman, ex-wife
of Sir Winston Churchill's son Randolph, in the post-war years but rebuffed
her entreaties to divorce his wife and marry her.

Mr de Rothschild's father, Nathaniel, is chairman of a European banking
business worth $12.5 billion. Friends said Raphael was bursting with
vitality and was a fixture on New York's fashionable social circuit.

In a life of glamorous parties and beautiful girlfriends, he frequented
nightspots like Moomba and Harry Cipriani.

Most recently, he had a relationship with Stella Schnabel, daughter of
Julian Schnabel, noted New York painter and film director.

Confirmation that Mr de Rothschild's death was the result of heroin will
await a formal toxicology report but a source said: "We have little doubt
that he died of a drug overdose."

The newspaper quoted friends as saying Mr de Rothschild was "out of control
in New York's fast lane".

He had been a student at America's best known private schools and then went
to the Ivy League Brown University in Rhode Island.

According to Frederic Morton, author of a history of the Rothschild
dynasty, the family had never made much impact in American banking circles
when compared with their enormous influence in Europe.

"But obviously they are immensely wealthy and the family name is well-known
in social circles in New York." The fact that Raphael's death occurred on
April 22 and was not reported in the New York press, which has a close
relationship with the police, is testament to the influence of the family.

"While they are not exactly reclusive, they do try to keep things private,"
Mr Morton said.

The death is the latest in a series of tragedies to afflict the world's
greatest banking dynasty.

Over the centuries since its five "arrows" or branches were set up by the
five sons of Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1743-1812), a Frankfurt money
lender, the family has exerted huge influence over the governments of Europe.

The Rothschilds financed Wellington's campaign in Spain in 1812, provided
the gold for Britain to buy its controlling share in the Suez Canal in 1875
and re-established the power of the French government after its crushing
defeat by Prussia in 1870. At times, the Rothschilds have been the richest
family in the world, but they also have been one of the most private.

Nobody is quite sure just how wealthy they are today, but their businesses
across the world are believed to control billions of pounds.

As so often happens with those whose lives are dominated by vast wealth and
the expectations of a dynasty - like the clans Kennedy, Onassis and
Niarchos - death and disaster have stalked the Rothschilds.

In 1923, Charles Rothschild, a scion of the British branch of the family,
cut his throat while in the grip of depression. Charles's grandson Amschel
hanged himself in a Paris hotel in 1996. Raphael de Rothschild is not the
first member of his family to have flirted with heroin. Four years ago, his
cousin Benjamin was fined $1000 for carrying the drug in Southampton
airport, England.

The Geneva-based Benjamin was revealed to be a registered addict who had
been enrolled in rehabilitation programmes in Paris. The following year he
became head of the family's main European banking company.

Pressure to keep a Rothschild name at the forefront of the dynasty's
business concerns has been growing because the family is not prolific.