Actor Acquitted on Drug Count

FLORENCE, Italy — Austrian actor Helmut Berger was acquitted today on a charge of possession of cocaine by an appeals court that cited lack of evidence.

The court reversed the verdict of a lower court last year that had sentenced Berger to one year and eight months in prison on the charge that stemmed from a party at the actor’s apartment in Rome in 1979. Berger, 42, has appeared in “The Garden of the Finzi-Continis” and “The Damned.”