A LAWSUIT filed Friday against a Hollywood photo agency says two of its paparazzi supplied actor Heath Ledger with cocaine so they could secretly videotape him snorting the drug in a hotel room two years ago.

The suit says footage of the Ledger encounter, a part of which aired briefly on two U.S. television shows days after his death in January, was sold to media outlets around the world.

The lawsuit claims the video has generated more than US$1 million in revenue that should be forfeited under a California state law that requires paparazzi to disgorge any profits obtained through illegal activity.

Ledger died of an accidental overdose of prescription drugs in his New York apartment Jan. 22.

The suit accuses the Los Angeles-area Splash News & Picture Agency of paying for cocaine that was allegedly used in 2006 by two of its photographers to entice Ledger, widely reported to have struggled with substance abuse, into being surreptitiously filmed using drugs.

The incident occurred Jan. 29, 2006, on Hollywood’s Sunset Strip, where Ledger was attending a party after he won the Screen Actors Guild Award for “Brokeback Mountain.”

The suit describes the plaintiff, a former freelance reporter for People magazine, as an unwitting accomplice of the two photographers, one of whom she was dating at the time. It says Ledger also had some cocaine of his own. (SD-Agencies)