The sketchy story about how the founder of RT died just got way sketchier

Mikhail Lesin.
(Image credit: Getty Images)

New details about the death of the founder of the Russian state-sponsored media company RT have raised more questions than they have answered. Mikhail Lesin's death — from blunt force injuries to the head, neck, torso, and extremities — was blamed on drunken falls after he was found dead in his hotel room in November 2015. The heavily-redacted Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department report, though, makes no mention of "the blunt force injuries that killed Lesin — or even about him falling down, which is how he is supposed to have died," BuzzFeed News reports.

Two intelligence agents additionally told BuzzFeed News that Lesin's death was on the eve of his interview with the Department of Justice about RT. What's more, the security disc from the hallway outside Lesin's room was "defective," and the police refused to answer if they ever managed to review the footage of "that crucial period between when Lesin was last seen and when he was found dead."

The night before his death, Lenin also reportedly had Secret Service agents posted outside of his bedroom to make sure he wouldn't leave. It is "unclear why the U.S .government's elite security force — which protects the president, vice president, and foreign dignitaries — would have intervened to have him watched," BuzzFeed News writes. The Secret Service, on the other hand, said Lesin "has never been a protectee." Read BuzzFeed News' entire investigation here.

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Jeva Lange

Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.