The arrest in New York City Monday of Robert Chambers, 41, on drug charges launched another chapter in what has been a story that just won’t go away.
Chambers, the so-called “Preppie Killer” became a familiar tabloid figure 21 years ago. And the key lawyers involved in his trial have gone on to a kind of stardom themselves.
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In 1988, near the end of a sensation-filled trial, Chambers pled guilty to manslaughter for the 1986 murder of 18-year-old Jennifer Levin in Central Park.
He entered the plea as the jury was deliberating a murder charge. He later received a 15-year prison sentence.
The trial had opened a lurid window onto the lives of the privileged children of Manhattan society.
The tall and handsome Chambers, who had bounced from one prep school to another, was portrayed an almost fictional character, a charmer with a violent streak.
And the story of killing later became a 1989 made for TV movie, The Preppie Murders, starring William Baldwin as Chambers, and Lara Flynn Boyle as Levin.
Linda Fairstein, the chief of the sex crimes prosecution unit for the New York County District Attorney’s Office, argued the case against Chambers. She left the D.A.’s office in 2002 and is now a best-selling novelist and television analyst.
Jack T. Litman was already a well-known criminal defense attorney when he took on the Chambers case. He fashioned a kind of blame-the-victim defense, arguing that his client accidentally choked Levin as she forced herself upon him sexually.
The defense drew objections from police and prosecutors. They said they had never heard of a man being raped in Central Park. However, it found some support from the press and from people who followed the case.
Litman successfully used a similar defense in the New York City trial earlier this year of Benjamin Odierno, who had been charged with second-degree murder in the 2005 killing of his wife, Christine.
Odierno admitted to stabbing his wife multiple times in their Upper East Side apartment, but claimed he did so in self-defense.
Chambers earned no time off for good behavior while in prison on the manslaughter charges. During his incarceration he was cited for repeated violations, some involving drugs.
He was released from prison on Feb. 14, 2003, Valentine’s Day. His return to freedom outraged Ellen Levin, the mother of his victim.
“He has never admitted any culpability in this crime, he has never shown any remorse, he has never truly said he is sorry for the pain he inflicted on my family,” she told the New York Times.
Chambers was arrested in 2005 for possessing traces of heroin and was sentenced to 100 days in jail, 10 more than he might have received if he had shown up for his sentencing on time.
“He has come back approximately an hour late, even more,” the judge said. “He has expressed his disrespect for the court.”
According to the New York Daily News, Chambers struggled with police as the arrested him Monday in an East 57 St. apartment on the felony drug charges.
They also arrested Shawn Kovell, 39, on drug charges. The owner of the apartment, she was also said to be one of the lingerie-clad women who appeared in a video with Chambers that was made while he was on trial for killing Levin.
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