Ex-Student Held in N.Y. Teacher’s Slaying
NEW YORK — Acting on a phone tip, police on Saturday arrested a 19-year-old man in the torture slaying of his former teacher, Jonathan Levin, the son of Time Warner Inc.’s top executive.
Corey Arthur was arrested in the Bedford Stuyvestant section of Brooklyn, Police Commissioner Howard Safir said at a news conference. Arthur, a convicted drug peddler, was charged with first-degree murder and robbery.
An alleged accomplice, Montoun Hart, 25, was also arrested and charged with second-degree murder and robbery, Safir said. Hart has a record of seven arrests, two for robbery in New York City.
The motive for the killing was robbery, Safir said. Investigators believe Levin was tortured and forced to reveal the personal identification number for his bank card, then killed after his assailants used the card to withdraw $800 from a nearby bank machine.
Police learned of Arthur’s whereabouts from a caller who apparently responded to a police decision Friday to release Arthur’s photo and offer an $11,000 reward, Safir said.
Levin, 31, was a popular English teacher at Taft High School in the Bronx and the son of Time Warner Chairman and CEO Gerald Levin. His partially decomposed body was discovered Monday night in his modest, one-bedroom apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side after he failed to show up for work.
Levin had been bound, stabbed and shot in the head. Cash, along with the bank card, was missing from his wallet.
Safir refused to discuss details of the case, but investigators believe that sometime on the night of May 30, Levin’s killer bound his feet and hands with duct tape, then forced him to reveal his bank card code by repeatedly stabbing him in the neck.
Levin may have still been alive when his assailant used the bank card before returning to shoot him in the head and stab him in the chest, police said.
Because there was no sign of a break-in, police said they believed Levin’s assailant was someone who knew him.
Arthur--one of a group of current and former students close to Levin--became the target of a manhunt after police learned that he had left a message on Levin’s answering machine the day of the killing. Police said he gave his name, then added, “I need to see you. It’s important.â€
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