Police have arrested a woman in connection with the July 2 death of actor Robert De Niro’s 19-year-old grandson Leandro.
Sofia Haley Marks, 21, is accused of selling drugs to Leandro De Niro Rodriguez just before he was found dead in his New York apartment.
The teen’s lifeless body was found on a chair next to white powder in a $950,000 one-bedroom apartment on Wall Street in New York.
A police source told the substance was found near his body and there were no signs of trauma. He was found by a friend who hadn’t heard from him in several days and was looking for him, a police source told TMZ.
Residents in the building next to the Wall Street subway station told they saw an ambulance and fire engine pull up on an otherwise quiet Sunday afternoon.
Leandro’s mom shared this photo of her son to Instagram on Monday as she mourned the loss of “my beautiful, sweet angel.”
Aspiring actor and director Leandro followed in the professional footsteps of his mother and grandfather and landed a small role in 2018’s ‘A Star Is Born’ as the son of Bradley Cooper’s best friend George “Noodles” Stone, played by Dave Chappelle. He also performed at Cabaret Maxime in 2018.
His mother, Drena De Niro — an American actress who adopted De Niro after the actor married her mother Diahnne Abbott in 1976 — announced his death.
His father, Carlos, a well-known graffiti artist, and his mother, Drena, 51, shared a statement on Instagram on Monday in response to Leandro’s untimely death.
“It is with great dismay and sadness that we say goodbye to our beloved son Leo. We thank you for the overflowing love and support and ask that this time we be given privacy to process this heartbreaking grief.
“You can’t spell love without Leo,” Carlos added as a caption to the post, which included cute pictures of Leandro at different ages.
Drena was adopted by De Niro and took his surname after the actor married her mother Diahnne Abbott in 1976.
Thanks to her father’s dynamic career, she led a relatively transient lifestyle, commuting between New York City, Los Angeles and Italy.
Drena left school and decided to pursue the arts, pursuing a variety of career paths including modeling, DJing and fashion consultant.
She eventually decided to follow in De Niro’s footsteps and soon found her footing as an actress and filmmaker.
She made De Niro a grandfather in 2003 when she welcomed Leandro with then-boyfriend Carlos Rodriguez.
Drena, who currently lives in New York, has since turned to directing and describes herself as trained in Muay Thai and martial arts.
At 51, Drena is five years older than De Niro’s eldest biological child, Raphael, with Abbott. Now 46, he’s a Manhattan real estate agent whose celebrity clients include Jon Bon Jovi and Renee Zellweger.
De Niro also has two children – twins Aaron and Julian, 27 – from his 1988-1995 relationship with former model and former actress Toukie Smith. They were conceived by in vitro fertilization and delivered to a surrogate mother.
In 1998, during his tumultuous 20-year marriage to his second wife, former flight attendant Grace Hightower, he also had a son, Elliot, 21, and in 2011 a daughter, Helen, 11 (also born to a surrogate).
In May, the 79-year-old actor confirmed he had given birth to his seventh child, Gia Virginia, with girlfriend Tiffany Chan, 43, with whom he has been dating since the summer of 2021.
Leandro’s death came after the Justice Department filed indictments against several Chinese companies and executives over their alleged role in the US fentanyl trade.
Today, almost all fentanyl precursors are manufactured and shipped from China, according to federal prosecutors.
Criminal organizations like the notorious Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico are working with Chinese companies to get the ingredients in fentanyl.