Daughter of US diplomat to Thailand falls 22 stories from NYC window

The 25-story Herald Towers high-rise apartment building in midtown Manhattan is seen Friday, Aug. 27, 2010, in New York where the 17-year-old daughter of the U.S. ambassador to Thailand plummeted to her death overnight. Police said Nicole John fell at about 4:15 a.m., apparently from the top floor. An incoming freshman at the Parsons The New School for Design slipped off her shoes and stepped out onto the ledge of a Manhattan high-rise apartment with a camera before falling

NEW YORK –  The 17-year-old daughter of the U.S. ambassador to Thailand slipped off her shoes and climbed out onto a window ledge Friday at a Manhattan apartment before plummeting more than 20 stories to her death, police said.

Nicole John fell at about 4:15 a.m. from the top floor of the 25-story Herald Towers, police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said. Her body landed on a third-floor ledge, a camera nearby. It's not clear whether she had been trying to take a photo when she died, and her death is believed to be accidental.

The girl's father, Eric John, was appointed U.S. ambassador to the Kingdom of Thailand in 2007.

John, an incoming freshman at Parsons The New School for Design in New York City, was thought to have been drinking. Ilan Nassimi, 25, who rents the apartment, was arrested later Friday on charges of giving alcohol to a minor, police said. He was awaiting arraignment in Manhattan court and it wasn't clear if he had a lawyer.

Police say John had been out with partying with friends at Tenjune, a club in the trendy Meatpacking District, before the group headed back to Nassimi's apartment at West 34th Street near the Empire State Building at around 2 a.m. Friday.