Lamar Odom released from Sunrise, friend confirms

A friend of Lamar Odom confirmed an E! News report that the former NBA star and husband of Khloe Kardashian was released from Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center Monday.

Professional boxer Zab Judah, who has a residence in Las Vegas, said that Odom is no longer at the Las Vegas hospital.

Judah told the Las Vegas Review-Journal last week that he was going to visit Odom each day he was at Sunrise, but he said Monday that he did not know where Odom had been taken.

The E! News report said Odom was en route to Los Angeles with his estranged wife via helicopter. There, he will receive more specialized treatment, entertainment news website TMZ reported.

Odom was transported to Sunrise after being found unconscious at the Love Ranch brothel in Nye County, about 80 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

He gave doctors a thumbs-up and spoke briefly Friday morning, a family spokeswoman said in the first official update on his condition.

"That is the only thing we can confirm at this moment and cannot answer any further questions on his condition," Alvina Alston told the Review-Journal in an email on Friday. Alston is a publicist representing JaNean Mercer, Odom's aunt who helped raise him.

Nye County sheriff's office investigators said Wednesday that the 35-year-old Odom had been using cocaine and sexual performance enhancers days before he was found unconscious. Doctors warn patients not to mix alcohol with the performance enhancers. A brothel spokesman said Odom took about 10 enhancement pills, some of which he got at the brothel, and drank Cognac during his four-day stay, which cost a reported $75,000.

Brothel owner Dennis Hof, though, has said repeatedly that his workers never saw Odom taking any drugs.

Investigators obtained a warrant to test Odom's blood for illicit drugs and are still awaiting the results. The sheriff's office said it could take weeks for results to come back.

Besides his time with the 2009 and 2010 NBA Championship Lakers, Odom is well known for being part of the Kardashian family.

E! News, airs on the same network as the reality show "Keeping Up With the Kardashians," which features Kardashian and sometimes Odom.

The pair filed for divorce in 2013 after four years of marriage, and because of case backlog, has yet to be finalized.

Contact Steven Moore at smoore@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4563. Contact Kimberly De La Cruz at kdelacruz@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0381. Find her on Twitter: @KimberlyinLV