NY Daily News: Rush Limbaugh in Pill Probe -- Talk radio star had drug habit, maid sez

NY Daily News & Drudge ^ | October 1, 2003 | Tracy Connor

[lainie]

Talk-radio titan Rush Limbaugh is being investigated for allegedly buying thousands of addictive painkillers from a black-market drug ring.

The moralizing motormouth was turned in by his former housekeeper - who says she was Limbaugh's pill supplier for four years.

Wilma Cline, 42, says Limbaugh was hooked on the potent prescription drugs OxyContin, Lorcet and hydrocodone - and went through detox twice.

"There were times when I worried," Cline told the National Enquirer, which broke the story in an edition being published today. "All these pills are enough to kill an elephant - never mind a man."

Cline could not be reached for further comment yesterday, but her lawyer, Ed Shohat of Miami, said his client "stands behind the story."

The Daily News independently confirmed that Limbaugh is under investigation.

His lawyers, Jerry Fox and Dan Zachary, refused to comment on the accusations and said any "medical information" about him was private and not newsworthy.

They said Limbaugh - who has a top-rated syndicated radio show but resigned early today from a weekly ESPN football segment amid criticism of racial comments about Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb - was traveling and had no comment.

The Palm Beach County state attorney's office, which is running the probe, said it could not confirm or deny the allegations.

Scoring in parking lot

Cline told the Enquirer she went to prosecutors with information about Limbaugh and others after four years of drug deals that included clandestine handoffs in a Denny's parking lot.

She said she wore a wire during her last two deliveries to the conservative commentator and gave the tapes to authorities.

She also gave the Enquirer a ledger documenting how many pills she claimed to have bought for him - 4,350 in one 47-day period - and E-mails she claimed Limbaugh sent her.

In one missive, Limbaugh pushed Cline to get more "little blues" - code for OxyContin, the powerful narcotic nicknamed hillbilly heroin, she said.

"You know how this stuff works ... the more you get used to, the more it takes," the May 2002 E-mail reads. "But I will try and cut down to help out."

The account Cline gave the Enquirer is that she became Limbaugh's drug connection in 1998, nine months after taking a housekeeping job at his Palm Beach mansion.

It started after her husband, David, hurt himself in a fall, and Limbaugh asked how he was.

"He asked me casually, 'Is he getting any pain medication?' I said, 'Yes - he's had surgery, and the doctor gave him hydro-codone 750,'" Cline said. "To my astonishment, he said, 'Can you spare a couple of them?'"

Husband's pills

Cline said she gave Limbaugh 10 pills the next day and agreed to give him 30 of her husband's pills each month. When the doctor stopped renewing the prescription in early 1999, Limbaugh allegedly went ballistic.

"His tone was nasty and bullying. He said, 'I don't care how or what you do, but you'd better - better! - get me some more,'" Cline said.

The housekeeper said she found a new supplier and arranged to hide Limbaugh's stashes under his mattress so his wife, Marta, wouldn't find them.

After several months, Limbaugh told her he was going to New York for detox and didn't need any more pills, Cline said.

But a month later, he said his left ear was hurting and asked her for hydrocodone, followed by an order for OxyContin.

Limbaugh, 52, suffered from autoimmune ear disease, a condition that left him deaf and had to be corrected with cochlear implant surgery two years ago.

Cline said she continued to make deliveries to Limbaugh even after she quit as his housekeeper in July 2001 - but he became increasingly paranoid, even patting her down for recording devices, she said.

In June 2002, Limbaugh told her he was going to New York for detox a second time.

After he returned, "I went to talk to him, and he cried a little bit," she said. "He told me that if it ever got out, he would be ruined."

She claimed that a lawyer for Limbaugh gave her a payoff - $80,000 he owed her, plus another $120,000 - and asked her to destroy the computer that contained the E-mail records.

Soon after, Cline and her husband retained Shohat and contacted prosecutors.

[CyberAnt]

Excuse me .. your answer is to be rude and insulting! Go back to DU and give it up - okay!!

[LanaTurnerOverdrive]

Good point. If he was taking as much vicodin as alleged, I'm surprised he could even function.

It was alleged that he bought that many pills....not that he consumed them over a specific period of time. Purchasing pharms on the black market is spotty. I often grab whatever I can when it is available for later use. I mean....a friend of mine does.

[Fracas]

Dorothy Kilgallen...there's a name from the past! The mother of all conspiracies...the JFK Assassination. She met with Jack Ruby 3 weeks before his death. Dorothy knew a lot. Did she know too much?

Interesting you should mention her on a day when all the attention has been on 'leaks' to another veteran reporter.

[backhoe]

There is NO WAY Rush could do ALL the work and activities he does and be on codene and oxycontone and murid of other downers its impossable he would be sleeping 95% of the time

Speaking only for myself, in a half-century of living, I've taken codeine for assorted broken bones, abcessed teeth, and a variety of other injuries, and the stuff just makes me feel slow and stupid.

You may recall that right before 9-11, the usual suspects in the Jackal Pack Press were trying to paint oxycontin as the new Demon Drug-- there were stories of crazed codeine-heads driving maniacally all night through trailer parks to get their fix.

I though it was a pile of garbage, and still do.

[Terp]

It was alleged that he bought that many pills....not that he consumed them over a specific period of time. Purchasing pharms on the black market is spotty.

I'm surprised your the first one to say this. I'm sure the media-crats will say the same.

[nopardons]

Yes and combined with the smear about him " owing " her $80,000 and then adding $120,000 to it, as " hush " money ? BALDERDASH !

What, he hadn't paid her in two-three years ? That's why he owed her $80,000 ?

[CyberAnt]

It's not for money - it's for power! Pure and simple.

The only way the democrats have a snowball's chance in hell to get ANY TIDBIT of power back is if they destroy Rush!

This is a set-up - a phoney - a power grab of the the extreme kind.

[CyberAnt]

Thanks!!

[Timesink]

Interestingly, as MSDNC and CNN come back live from the overnight sleep, both are running the ESPN crap (and lying through their teeth about it in a breathtakingly evil manner) as their top story, but completely ignoring the drug story.

[nopardons]

I just checked...the N.Y.POST isn't running with this story at all. It isn't on the front page; unlike the Daily Trash...errrrrrrrrr, I mean News.

[CyberAnt]

Once you go to the Enquirer - you're not a credible witness any longer. This is a smear - this is not a legit criminal case. No credible police unit would allow their "star" witness to give her story to the Enquirer. I'm telling you this is a bunch of malarky!!

[nopardons]

I said the same thing, hours ago. LOL

[LanaTurnerOverdrive]

It was alleged that he bought that many pills....not that he consumed them over a specific period of time. Purchasing pharms on the black market is spotty.

I'm surprised your the first one to say this.

You're surprised that I'm the first of 665 posters to read the article correctly?

So am I.

[Richard Axtell]

Remember how this plays out, and let's find out who is behind all of this. Backlash should become a word these vile DNC reptiles fear.

[CyberAnt]

You got it!!

[Michael121]

Right. Agree. It seems with some "friends" like these on here, jumping in to say hey it could be true, Rush needs help...etc.... we don't need D-enemies.

Sheesh, you would think that logic has been lost here.

[Brian Allen]

<< Bill Clinton had forcible [Sodomy] with dogs. >>

Notwithstanding that the felonies Cli'ton is known to have gotten away with would have earned you or I more than 200 years in prison for seperate first offenses, that one was not supposed to EVER get out.

But now that it has, you'd better have the hole tawdry truth.

That was why, according to the note it left on once-white house notepaper, poor Buddy KKKli'toon, the nutted dog, offed itself.

[Samizdat]

Time to change the subject. Lets dig up Vince Foster and talk about that neck wound. That'll get 'em going and on the run.

[CyberAnt]

I don't believe this Rush allegation.

However .. the best lawyers (good ones) will tell you it's not a good idea to allow your client to talk. The reason is that their words become "public domain" or something like that and it's a real problem for the courts. It makes some stuff admissable and other stuff not. That's the best I can explain it.

[CyberAnt]

I read ya!!