Right-wing radio jock Rush Limbaugh promised yesterday to cooperate with police probing whether he bought black-market painkillers – an inquiry sources say could result in criminal charges against the conservative commentator.
Limbaugh stayed off the air yesterday and sought sanctuary from the swirling scandal at his Florida home. But his spokeswoman insisted he will be back in New York today to broadcast his popular radio show.
“He will be on the air tomorrow,” Keven Bellows of Premiere Network, which syndicates the show, said yesterday.
Bellows, however, refused to answer when asked point-blank whether Limbaugh was hooked on drugs.
Limbaugh, 52, ducked reporters at a broadcasters convention in Philadelphia who tried to ask him about the Daily News report that he was under investigation in Palm Beach, Fla., for buying OxyContin, Lorcet and hydrocodone under the counter – and by the bushelful.
The News also confirmed key parts of a National Enquirer report that outed Limbaugh’s former maid, Wilma Cline, as his pusher.
Cline said she supplied Limbaugh with thousands of pills from 1998 through last year – often meeting with the right-winger in the parking lot of a Denny’s restaurant in West Palm Beach.
“He’d given me some of his empty Cuban cigar boxes,” Cline told the tabloid. “Typically, when we met that way, he’d lower the window of his Mercedes and I’d hand him my cigar box full of pills.”
Then, Cline said, Limbaugh would hand her a cigar box full of money. “Here’s the cabbage,” he’d say.
Limbaugh, who regularly lambastes liberals for supposedly loose morals and has ripped politicians who have suggested legalizing some drugs, did not challenge The News or Enquirer reports yesterday.
On his Web site, he posted a note in which he said he was “unaware of any investigation by any authorities involving me.”
“No governmental representative has contacted me directly or indirectly,” he wrote. “If my assistance is required in the future, I will, of course, cooperate fully.”
Pharmacist on hot seat
Limbaugh is expected to be questioned within days as part of a probe into former Florida pharmacist Louis Beshara, who, with his wife, Gloria, allegedly supplied drug dealers with thousands of prescription hydrocodone tablets, a law enforcement source said yesterday.
Florida has been cracking down on illegal prescription drug peddling, and a source familiar with the case said Limbaugh’s fame won’t save him. “If the evidence is there, he could be charged,” the source said.
Two years ago, Gov. Jeb Bush’s daughter, Noelle, was busted after she was caught using a phony prescription to buy Xanax, an anti-anxiety drug that cocaine addicts use to come down from their highs.
The Palm Beach County state attorney’s office, which is running the probe, again refused to confirm or deny it was involved.
The developments came a day after Limbaugh quit ESPN’s “NFL Sunday Countdown” for racial comments he made Sunday about Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb.
Limbaugh ignored the drug flap in his appearance before the National Association of Broadcasters, instead telling the crowd he meant no harm when he said the media were “very desirous” to see a black quarterback like McNabb succeed.
He said he quit to spare his fellow ESPN panelists from the media mayhem.
Black leaders ripped Limbaugh, and ESPN was deluged with calls and E-mails from angry fans.
Fearing a backlash, security officials at WABC’s midtown offices urged workers to be extra careful. “Please be advised that with the current situation regarding Rush, everyone should be aware of any unknown guests or packages,” they said in an E-mail to building tenants.