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Unanswered questions remain over the sudden death of a high-flying ABC producer who choked outside a New York City restaurant while enjoying dinner with his wife as their children were left alone in a hotel room.
Dax Tejera, 37, choked to death while drunk as he and his wife, Veronica, 33, dined at Bobby Van’s on Park Avenue on December 23 while their daughters – then aged six months and two years – were left in their room at the members-only Yale Club.
But some of the circumstances surrounding the incident are still unclear, including who the couple were with at the restaurant and the discrepancy between initial statements claiming Tejera suffered a heart attack and the official cause of death.
Police who investigated the unattended children discovered ‘friends’ of the couple had gone to the hotel to check on them after Tejera collapsed, but it is not known who the friends were.
Meanwhile, Veronica was given a desk ticket that ordered her to appear in court, although the NYPD on Wednesday declined to give an update on the case or the status of the charges.
Tejera and his wife, Veronica, pictured together, were out for dinner in New York City while their children were left alone at the Yale Club. Tejera collapsed outside the restaurant and died, hours before his wife was arrested on charges of child endangerment
Tejera with ABC colleagues at a meeting with President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden. The NYPD called ABC’s New York office on the night of Tejera’s death and informed his colleagues
Devastated colleagues of Tejera learned about his death after the NYPD called the broadcaster’s New York office on the same night.
Police who responded to the incident shortly after 9pm on December 23 called the ABC News office in New York and informed a manager that Tejera, a producer on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, had passed away. It is also not clear why the NYPD decided to contact Tejera’s employer so soon after he died or if his wife had requested they do so.
Tejera had worked at ABC since 2017, when he started as a Senior Producer at the network’s Washington DC bureau
Less than two hours after Tejera collapsed, officers received a 911 call at around 11pm about the children left unattended by the couple at the members-only Yale Club at 50 Vanderbilt Avenue, about a block away from the restaurant.
Hotel staff found the children had been ‘left unattended for at least two hours’ while the Tejeras had dinner. It remains unclear who the Tejeras were with during the dinner. After Tejera collapsed, police found out that ‘friends of the couple [had gone] to the hotel to retrieve the children’.
Veronica Tejera, who had traveled in an ambulance with her husband to New York’s Bellevue Hospital, was placed under arrest at about 12.20pm. She was later charged with two counts of ‘acting in a manner injurious to a child’.
The children were left with their grandparents while Veronica was issued a desk ticket, which ordered her to appear in court at a later date, and released from custody shortly after 4am.
It’s not clear whether she has appeared in court over the incident. The NYPD declined to offer further information. A spokesman for Veronica was approached for comment.
Witnesses who saw Tejera collapse appear to have initially believed he was suffering a heart attack or cardiac arrest.
The FDNY said emergency medical units responded to a ‘report of a person in cardiac arrest’ at 9.16pm.
Dax and Veronica Tejera left their children alone in their room at the Yale Club for at least two hours while they dined at Bobby Van’s. Veronica was arrested by police for ‘acting in a manner injurious to a child’
The couple left their daughters alone for at least two hours while they enjoyed dinner at Bobby Van’s Steakhouse at 230 Park Avenue, in Manhattan, about a block away from the Yale Club. Pictured left: the entrance to the steakhouse. Pictured right: Dax and Veronica in 2018
The following day, ABC News President Kim Godwin told staff in a memo that Tejera had ‘died suddenly of a heart attack’.
But the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner said on Wednesday that Tejera died after he choked due to being intoxicated. The official cause was ‘asphyxia due to obstruction of airway by food bolus complicating acute alcohol intoxication’.
A staff member at Bobby Van’s has claimed that Tejera appeared unwell ‘before anyone ate’ and that just after a waiter a serve brought the orders to the table, he asked Tejera, ‘are you OK, sir?’.
Tejera then ‘got up and started walking like he was going to the men’s room, but he made a right instead, and went out the front door, and the server followed him outside.
Dax Tejera, pictured with his children and wife Veronica, died on December 23 after he choked at a Manhattan steakhouse. Veronica was arrested after it emerged the couple had left their daughters, then aged two years old and five months old, alone in a Yale Club hotel room
‘The server said he collapsed in the corner, right here outside the restaurant,’ the employee told the New York Post.
Veronica admitted after the incident that it was a ‘poor decision’ to leave the couple’s daughters on their own. She said they were monitoring the children using a camera.
Veronica’s LinkedIn profile recently listed her as a senior producer at the Washington Post, which she joined in October 2022. Before that, she spent nearly six years at CNN. Her profile states that her achievements there include producing an interview with President Joe Biden on The Lead with Jake Tapper.
She launched a fundraiser for the Tejera children’s 529 college account after her husband’s death. The page said: ‘Dax Tejera passed away suddenly, leaving 2-year-old Sofia and 6-month old Ella without their father. Please support the girl’s education.’
Tejera had worked at ABC since 2017, when he started as a Senior Producer at the network’s Washington DC bureau.
He previously worked at NBC and held degrees from both Dartmouth and Columbia.
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