robert chambers

Prosecutor Recalls the Chambers Case
By Sewell Chan

Linda Fairstein was the lead prosecutor in the 1988 murder trial of Robert E. Chambers Jr. for killing Jennifer Levin in Central Park on Aug. 26, 1986. She oversaw a trial that lasted more than two months and ended, abruptly, on the ninth day of jury deliberations, when Mr. Chambers pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter. He was sentenced to 5 to 15 years; if he had been convicted of second-degree murder, he could have faced 25 years.
Ms. Fairstein, who lives in Manhattan, returned home late on Monday evening to find a voice-mail message from a reporter telling her that Mr. Chambers had been arrested that night on charges of selling cocaine from his Midtown apartment. Today, Ms. Fairstein has been fielding calls from a number of journalists. She made some time to talk with City Room about the case. (Read a chronology of the case here.)
"It was at the time the longest single defendant deliberation in the state," Ms. Fairstein said. "It was not a typical strangulation case. There was no evidence of manual strangulation. There was no ligature strangulation � nothing completely around her neck."
Ms. Fairstein recalled that the trial judge turned down a motion by the prosecutors to use as evidence a denim jacket that they believed was used to suffocate Ms. Levin. The jacket had blood from Mr. Chambers's fingers and Ms. Levin's mouth, as well as her saliva. The judge ruled that the DNA analysis techniques available at the time were not sufficient to allow the jacket to be entered as evidence.
"Had the case been tried two years later, in 1989, when DNA was first accepted as a scientifically valid technique in an American courtroom, it would have been different, she said.
Ms. Fairstein also argued that the case occurred before there was "greater societal understanding of interpersonal violence." She noted that when police first came upon the scene, they theorized that Ms. Levin must have been killed by a stranger. Only after interviewing her family and friends and learning that Mr. Chambers had been at an Upper East Side bar with her until late did the police visit Mr. Chambers's apartment, where his body showed signs of a struggle. He was arrested.
Ms. Fairstein still believes that the term "preppy killer" ― a moniker used repeatedly by the tabloid newspapers to describe Mr. Chambers ― helped to paint an image of him as innocent. That image, she said, was already aided by the fact that he was "a well-spoken, white, middle-class defendant" who had attended exclusive private schools.
That public image, she said, belied a troubled past that included repeated drug abuse ― and discipline problems at school ― from the time Mr. Chambers was 14.
"Nobody who worked as closely with him as the detectives and I did would be surprised that the cause that would lead to his arrest would be drugs," she said. Because Mr. Chambers never took the witness stand, she said, the jury never had a chance to learn about his drug history, which she said included being kicked out of a Hazelden treatment facility just months before the killing.
Reporters covering the Chambers trial started a betting pool, Ms. Fairstein said, with most of them predicting he would not be convicted.
"I'm not the least bit surprised that it's drugs that would ultimately lead to his downfall," she said, "but when I did get the call last night, I was shocked at the level � that he was dealing, stupid enough to be dealing out of his home to undercover cops on multiple occasions and that it was a high amount of cocaine. I was shocked at the brazenness."
Mr. Chambers was indicted today in State Supreme Court in Manhattan on seven counts of selling drugs and six counts of possessing drugs. He said he did not have and could not afford a lawyer. He was held pending an arraignment on Thursday, at which a court-appointed lawyer will represent him. He has not entered a plea.
The most serious charges carry sentences of 15 to 30 years on each count, and the fact that Mr. Chambers is believed to have sold drugs on multiple occasions means that he could be sentenced to concurrent ― rather than consecutive ― prison terms.
"If convicted of these charges, he's going to be very old man in state prison," Ms. Fairstein said.
Mr. Fairstein concluded, "He's a drug-addicted sociopath and a dropout," she said. "That 's what he was from the age of 14. This is someone who had a family wiling to help him." Even Catholic priests had tried to intervene on his behalf, she said.
Ms. Fairstein left the Manhattan district attorney's office in 2002, after 30 years as one of the city's most high-profile prosecutors. For most of that time, she was the head of the sex-crimes unit. She is often on television as a commentator, and she has written nine crime and suspense novels. (The 10th is due to be published in March.)
Jack T. Litman, who was Mr. Chambers's chief defense lawyer in the 1988, has not offered a public response to the news of Mr. Chambers's latest trouble with the law.
Prosecutor Recalls the Chambers CaseNew York Times
- Oct 24, 2007
- 2 hours ago
By Sewell Chan Linda Fairstein was the lead prosecutor in the 1988 murder trial of Robert E. Chambers Jr. for killing Jennifer Levin in Central Park on Aug. ...
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Say a final farewell to Robert Chambers, the man who ensured E! Channel-level publicity in perpetuity for Upper East Side Irish pub Dorrian's Red Hand, which is the last place his former ladyfriend was seen alive in 1986. ...

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Web results


Robert Chambers (killer) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Robert Chambers (born 25 September 1966) is an American who was convicted of manslaughter, nicknamed the Preppy Killer. He killed 18-year-old Jennifer Levin ...

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Robert Chambers - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the Scottish author and publisher; for other people named Robert Chambers, see Robert Chambers (disambiguation). ...

clipped from Google - 10/2007
A Killing in Central Park: The Preppy Murder Case
The Preppy Murder, Jennifer Levine was murdered by Robert Chambers who claimed that he acted in self defence, from the Crime Library.

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Rob's Rhapsody
Rob Chambers, Principal Development Lead and Architect, Microsoft). Thursday, August 23rd, 2007, 1:30 p.m. � 4:30 p.m.. Speech recognition and speech ... Robert Chambers (killer)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
For other people named Robert Chambers, see Robert Chambers (disambiguation).
Robert E. Chambers, Jr.[1] (born 25 September 1966), nicknamed the Preppy Killer, is an American who was convicted of manslaughter. He killed 18-year-old Jennifer Levin in New York's Central Park during the early morning of 26 August 1986.

Contents
1 Life before the Central Park killing
2 Levin's murder
3 Chambers' arrest
4 The trial, in court and in the media
5 Aftermath
6 A New Crime
7 References
8 Dramatization
9 External links



[edit] Life before the Central Park killing
Chambers was raised by his mother Phyllis, who emigrated from County Leitrim in Ireland to New York City. He served as an altar boy. He attended a series of prep schools, but had problems with poor grades and behavior, including stealing and drug abuse. He attended St. David's, Choate Rosemary Hall, and Browning before ultimately graduating from York Preparatory School in Manhattan, and was accepted into Boston University, where he completed one semester but was asked to leave because of difficulties involving a stolen credit card. He subsequently committed other petty thefts and burglaries in connection with his drug and alcohol abuse.

Unable to hold a job, he was issued a summons for disorderly conduct one night after leaving the Upper East Side bar "Dorrian's Red Hand," at 300 East 84th Street (screaming obscenities in the middle of the street). As the police drove away, Chambers tore up the summons and yelled: "You fucking cowards, you should stick to niggers!"[2]

He attended and was discharged from Hazelden Clinic in Minnesota, an addiction treatment center, just prior to the killing. He lived with his mother in an apartment in a townhouse at 11 East 90th Street.


[edit] Levin's murder
Chambers's girlfriend Alex very publicly broke up with him at Dorrian's Red Hand the night of the killing. She was heard to express jealousy regarding the presence of Jennifer Levin as she broke up with him. He subsequently left the bar with Levin.

Levin's strangled, semi-clad corpse, which had bruises, bite marks, and cuts, was found by a bicyclist beneath an elm tree on a grassy knoll near Fifth Avenue and 83rd Street behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art.[3] Her bra and shirt were pushed up to her neck, and her skirt was around her waist.[4] The city Medical Examiner's office said Levin died of "asphyxia by strangulation," and police officials said there were numerous bruises on her neck, both from the strangulation and from her own fingernails as she clawed at her murderer's hands. Later, Chambers watched from nearby as police officers investigated and found Levin's underwear some 50 yards away.[citation needed]


[edit] Chambers' arrest
Police were given Chambers's name by patrons at the bar, which he had been seen leaving with Levin. When they called to question him at his home he had fresh scratches on his face and arms, which he initially said were cat scratches, and was taken in for questioning.

Though he changed his story several times (for example, his cat had been declawed; he didn't part from Levin immediately upon leaving the bar; his story that she had parted from him to purchase cigarettes was invented, as she didn't smoke), his ultimate confession claimed that some time after he and Levin had left the bar she sexually assaulted him, asked for "rough sex," tied the 6'5" Chambers's hands with her panties, hurt his genitals as she painfully masturbated him, and that she had been killed accidentally when he freed his hands and pushed her off him.

Confronted with this explanation, the examining Assistant District Attorney Saracco said: "I've been in this business for a while, and you're the first man I've seen raped in Central Park."

Before booking, Chambers was permitted to see his father, to whom he said, "That fucking bitch, why didn't she leave me alone?"[citation needed]


[edit] The trial, in court and in the media
The media labelled the crime "The Preppie Murder." Part of the media reported the more lurid aspects of the case; e.g. New York Daily News headlines read: "How Jennifer Courted Death" and "Sex Play Got Rough." Levin's reputation was attacked, and she was portrayed as a "teenage vamp," while Chambers was a handsome Kennedy-esque "preppie altar boy" with a "promising future," and the couple were portrayed as tragic lovers emblematic of the wasted lives of modern socialite idle youth. Some initial media coverage took as a given that a girl who drinks with a man in a bar late at night and goes to the park for sex deserves what happens to her.[citation needed]Archbishop Ted McCarrick of Newark, New Jersey, (later Theodore Cardinal McCarrick, Archbishop of Washington) wrote a letter of support for Chambers's bail application. (He had known Chambers and his mother because Phyllis had been employed as a nurse by Terence Cardinal Cooke).

In an unusual turn for a murder case in which the defendant has no job, bail was granted, and Chambers was bailed out by his family and the owner of the bar, Jack Dorrian (who used his $650,000 East Side townhouse to secure $150,000 bail for Chambers).[5] He remained free on bond for the two years of his trial, reporting regularly to Monsignor Thomas Leonard, a former teacher and a family friend.

Chambers was charged with, and tried for, two counts of second-degree murder. His defense was that the killing had happened during "rough sex."

Chambers was defended by prominent lawyer Jack T. Litman, who had previously used the "blame the victim" strategy in his defense of Richard Herrin for the murder of Yale University student Bonnie Garland. The prosecutor Linda Fairstein stated: "In more than 8,000 cases of reported assaults in the last 10 years, this is the first in which a male reported being sexually assaulted by a female." The defense sought to depict Levin as a sexually wanton woman who kept a "sex diary." No such diary existed; Jennifer instead owned a small notebook that contained the names and phone numbers of her friends. Such tactics were met with public outrage, with protesters (some calling themselves "Justice for Jennifer") demonstrating outside the courtroom.

With the jury deadlocked for 9 days, a plea bargain was struck in which Chambers pled guilty to the lesser crime of manslaughter in the first degree (a Class B felony), and to one count of burglary (a Class C felony) for his 1986 thefts.

He was sentenced to serve 5 to 15 years (with the sentence for burglary being served concurrently).

After the trial, the tabloid television program A Current Affair obtained and broadcast (in April 1988) a home video showing Chambers cavorting at a party when he was free on bail, amidst four lingerie-clad girls, choking himself with his hands while making loud gagging noises, and twisting a Barbie doll's head off, saying in falsetto: "My name is…. Oops! I think I killed it."


[edit] Aftermath
Chambers served most of his 15-year sentence at Auburn State Prison, but was later moved to Clinton Correctional Facility, due to his infractions which cost him all his time off for good behavior. He assaulted a correctional officer, and was cited repeatedly for weapons and drug infractions, some of which resulted in additional criminal charges. Ellen Levin, mother of Jennifer Levin, also pleaded before the New York parole board to deny him parole.

Nearly 5 years of his term were served in solitary confinement. He was discharged from prison on Valentine's Day, February 14, 2003, at age 36, after having served the entirety of his prison term due to his numerous infractions.

The owner of Dorrian's Red Hand came to a private settlement with Levin's parents on their claim that the bar had served alcohol to Chambers in excess.

A wrongful death lawsuit to which Chambers pleaded no contest provides that his future income (up to $25 million), including any income from book or movie deals, will be turned over to the Levin family. The family has said all the money it gets from Chambers will go to victims' rights organizations.[6]

Ellen Levin became an activist for victims' rights, helping to secure the passage of 13 pieces of legislation.

After leaving prison, Chambers settled in Dalton, Georgia, with his girlfriend, Shawn Kovell, who was in the infamous Barbie doll video before his sentencing. The two lived there for eight to nine months. He found a job at the Pentafab dye factory.

Chambers and Kovell moved to an East 57th Street (near Second Avenue) Sutton Place apartment in New York when it was left vacant by the death of Kovell's mother in the autumn of 2003. Chambers found a job at a limousine company in Queens, and later in a New Jersey sports trophy manufacturer engraving plant.

Shortly before Thanksgiving 2004, Chambers was stopped in his Saab for driving with a suspended drivers license in Manhattan on Harlem River Drive at 139th Street. A search of the car he was driving found glassine envelopes with an unknown substance. Chambers was charged on November 29, 2004, with possession of heroin and cocaine, driving with a suspended license, and driving a car without a valid inspection sticker.

He pleaded guilty in July 2005, and on August 29 he was sentenced to a reduced sentence of 100 days in jail and fined $200. The judge added 10 days to what prosecutors and Chambers' lawyer had agreed on because Chambers was an hour late for the hearing. He faced up to a year in jail if he had been convicted after trial.[6]


[edit] A New Crime
On October 22, 2007 Chambers was arrested in his apartment[7] and charged with three counts of criminal sale of cocaine in the first degree, three counts of criminal sale of a controlled substance in the second degree and one count of resisting arrest.[8] Kovell was also arrested on one count of criminal sale of a controlled substance in the second degree. To quote the New York Daily News:

"Cops said Chambers, 41, struggled with officers who tried to handcuff him on the felony charges. One detective suffered a broken thumb in the fracas." [9]

In commenting on his new arrest, former Assistant District Attorney Linda Fairstein, who had prosecuted Chambers for Levin's murder, said the following:

"doesn't surprise me. I always believed his problem with drugs and alcohol would get him in trouble again. He's had the opportunity in prison to detox and take college courses, to straighten out his life," she said, "but that clearly is of no interest to him. He's learned nothing in the last 20 years." [10]