Son of Author Paul Auster Charged in Fatal Overdose of 10-Month-Old Daughter

A 10-month-old girl in Brooklyn died from a combination of fentanyl and heroin, and her 44-year-old father, Daniel Auster — son of the famous novelist Paul Auster — was charged in her death, the police said.

The girl, Ruby Auster, was found unconscious on Nov. 1 at a home on Bergen Street in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and was pronounced dead at a hospital, the police said. The medical examiner’s office later determined that she died from “acute intoxication” of the drugs, the police said.

Mr. Auster was charged with manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide after conferral with the district attorney’s office, the police said. Information about Mr. Auster’s lawyer was not immediately available.

Outside the Bergen Street rowhouse on Saturday, two neighbors said that Mr. Auster and his partner were friendly as they strolled with their baby. But one day in the fall, a jumble of baby items — clothes, books and toys — appeared on the sidewalk outside, and neighbors learned that the baby had died.

In 1996, Daniel Auster played a minor role in a notorious nightlife murder case, in which the club promoter Michael Alig and an accomplice killed and dismembered a drug dealer, Andrew Melendez, also known as Angel, and threw his body in the Hudson River.

Mr. Auster pleaded guilty in 1998 to possessing $3,000 that had been stolen from Mr. Melendez and was sentenced to probation. He was not implicated in the killing.

A police spokesman confirmed that the Daniel Auster charged in the death of Ruby Auster had been arrested in 1998 on charges of possessing stolen property and that the charges were connected to a murder charge against Mr. Alig.

Mr. Alig died in 2020 of a heroin overdose.

Mr. Auster’s father, Paul Auster, is one of New York City’s most noted novelists, the author of “City of Glass” and “4 3 2 1,” among many best sellers. He declined to comment when he was reached by phone on Saturday.

In 2003, Daniel Auster’s stepmother, Siri Hustvedt, published a novel, “What I Loved,” in which one character is a drug addict and is eventually arrested in connection with the murder of a drug dealer. In Paul Auster’s 2003 novel “Oracle Night,” the narrator is a writer whose son is a drug addict.