Philip Seymour Hoffman bought his heroin like a common junkie, going to an Manhattan apartment to feed his addiction, law-enforcement sources told The Post Tuesday.
A witness told police that he himself went to buy drugs at the apartment a couple of months ago and was stunned to see the actor there purchasing heroin, the sources said.
Last night, cops busted three men and a woman at the address after finding a mother lode of heroin.
Detectives had set up surveillance on the apartment building Monday night, the day after the “Capote” star died of an apparent heroin overdose at his Greenwich Village home.
While Hoffman was spotted at the Mott Street drug den months ago, he allegedly scored his fatal stash from two dealers outside a D’Agostino’s near his Bethune Street home Saturday night, sources said.
The dealers, both with messenger bags, stood next to the actor as he withdrew $1,200 in six installments from the Greenwich Street grocery store’s ATM at around 8 p.m., the sources said, citing bank records and an eyewitness. They duo allegedly sold him about $1,000 worth of heroin and cocaine.
“That’s when the [drug] transaction took place,’’ a law-enforcement source said.
The deal wasn’t caught on video, but cops were scouring the area for other surveillance cameras that might show Hoffman or the suspects, including footage from a town house directly across the street from his apartment.
Tuesday night, cops raided the Mott Street apartment where Hoffman was seen months ago by the witness. They busted the people they believe may have dealt drugs to him, and found more than 350 envelopes with what appeared to be heroin. Police arrested Robert Vineberg, 57, Max Rosenblum, 22, Thomas Kushman 48, and Juliana Luchkiw, 22, and charged them with criminal possession of a controlled substance, sources said.
Vineberg, who uses the stage name Robert Aaron, is a jazz musician who has performed with hip-hop artist Wyclef Jean.
Cops could not confirm that any of the suspects actually sold to Hoffman, and the bags found in the apartment did not have the “Ace of Spades” stamp, which were on the bags found in Hoffman’s place.
The actor’s body was found in his apartment just after 11 a.m. Sunday, along with 23 empty bags of heroin and 49 sealed bags of the drug, as well as cocaine and new and used syringes. There were only a couple of dollars in the pad, sources said.
Police said Tuesday that the heroin found there tested at 59 percent pure, nearly the highest level cops ever see, law-enforcement sources said. It did not contain fentanyl, a powerful synthetic morphine sometimes added to the drug to increase the high, police said. The mixture has been linked to 22 suspected overdose deaths in Pennsylvania.
Hoffman’s personal assistant, Isabella Wing-Davey, and the actor’s close friend David Bar Katz found his body in the bathroom, a syringe still in his left forearm.
Wing-Davey had been asked to go to the pad by Hoffman’s worried estranged girlfriend, Mimi O’Donnell, after he didn’t show up for a scheduled visit with their three young children, sources said.
Wing-Davey had the keys to Hoffman’s apartment, but she called Katz to accompany her because she “apparently did not want to go over there alone . . . She may have suspected something was wrong,’’ a source said.
The actor had admitted in interviews that he battled drug and alcohol addiction in his early 20s, then stayed clean for more than two decades before relapsing in 2012.
He went into rehab for 10 days in May, but clearly hadn’t beaten his demons — and he knew it, pals said.
Hoffman had been attending meetings for struggling addicts and alcoholics at a Greenwich Village center for more than two decades— even up until at least the week before he died.
“I told him to keep coming back, and he said, ‘Yeah, I will,’ ” said José Torres, recalling when he last saw Hoffman at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting at the Perry Street Workshop around Jan. 24.
“I remember asking, ‘How are you doing?’ And he said, ‘OK. There are the little situations in life. Life still shows up,’ ” said Torres, 53.
“He went to a lot of different places, but he came here mostly. Everybody loved him, and he loved everybody, no matter who you were.”
Another man at the center said he last saw Hoffman two months ago.
“He was trying to get sober,” said Edward Donohue, 58. “He would speak sometimes . . . He might raise his hand and say something about what he was going through that day.”
But with the actor still abusing drugs and booze, O’Donnell felt that she finally had to kick him out of the couple’s Jane Street home for the sake of their children, son Cooper, 10, and two daughters, Tallulah, 7, and Willa, 5.
A clearly grief-stricken O’Donnell emerged from two days of seclusion Tuesday to go with Wing-Davey to the Frank E. Campbell funeral home on the Upper East Side to make arrangements.
A private wake is set for 5 to 9 p.m. Thursday, followed by a noon funeral Mass Friday at St. Ignatius of Loyola Roman Catholic Church on Park Avenue, sources said.
It’s the same church where Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’ funeral was held in May 1994.
Hoffman’s body will be cremated, according to sources.
Wing-Davey and Katz were allowed to cross the police tape at the actor’s apartment Tuesday afternoon and left carrying a bag of clothing. A source said the family picked out a suit for Hoffman.
The actor’s heartbroken mother, Marilyn O’Conner, joined a string of Hollywood stars at O’Donnell’s home Tuesday. In an emotional speech after accepting the Best Actor Oscar for “Capote,” Hoffman had credited her for his success.
Among the grim-faced celebrities entering the Jane Street home Tuesday were actors Justin Theroux, Ethan Hawke, Gary Oldman, Joaquin Phoenix, Ewan McGregor, Eric Bogosian, Bobby Cannavale, David Zayas of “Dexter,” and “Sopranos’’ actress Lola Glaudini.
Hoffman’s longtime collaborator, “Boogie Nights” filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson, accompanied Phoenix, whom Anderson directed along with Hoffman in 2012’s “The Master,” which earned both actors Oscar nominations.
Theroux and Cate Blanchett returned Tuesday after visiting on Monday as well.
Additional reporting by Philip Messing, Antonio Antenucci and Kate Sheehy.