When Dax Tejera, executive producer of ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” died tragically last December while dining at Bobby Van’s in New York City, his death was initially reported as a heart attack.
According to ENews, that account is incorrect. The New York City Chief Medical Examiner Office states Tejera died choking on food while in an acute state of intoxication, listing his official cause of death as “asphyxia due to obstruction of airway by food bolus complicating acute alcohol consumption.”
Tejera’s wife Veronica was subsequently charged with two counts of endangering the welfare of a child for leaving their two daughters, aged two years and seven months, alone in the hotel as the couple dined with friends on the night of his death.
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While she states she called both her parents and a close friend to go to the Yale Club Hotel to collect the children as she accompanied Tejera to the hospital, the hotel called the police upon learning the children had been alone for an extended period of time.
Veronica, who is a senior producer for The Washington Post, released a statement regarding her arrest to Entertainment Tonight, stating “We had two cameras trained on my children as they slept, and I monitored them closely in the time that I was away from them. While my girls were unharmed, I realize that it was a poor decision.”
Tejera, who held a history degree from Dartmouth College and was a graduate of Columbia University School of Journalism, joined ABC News in 2017.
He was reportedly visually unwell while at dinner the night of his death, prompting the server to ask him if he was OK. Tejera then left the table, stepping outside of the restaurant where he collapsed before being rushed to the hospital.
