10/22/07

Robert E. Chambers Jr., the so-called “Preppy Killer,” who strangled a young woman in Central Park in the 1980s, was arrested in Manhattan last night on charges of selling cocaine from his east midtown apartment, the police said.

Mr. Chambers long-time companion, Shawn Kovell, 39, was also arrested on drug-selling charges after officers broke down the door to their high-rise apartment on 575 E. 57th Street. Two officers suffered hand injuries while struggling to arrest Mr. Chambers, 41, prompting the authorities to file additional charges of resisting arrest, the police said.

According to narcotics detectives, Mr. Chambers and Ms. Kovell had been placed under investigation about four months ago after neighbors complained of heavy traffic to and from their apartment — which Ms. Kovell had inherited from her mother — at all hours of the night. In that time, particularly over the summer, an undercover detective visited the apartment and made several purchases of powdered cocaine, the police said. They said that some of the sales were for multiple grams of cocaine at one time, rising to the level of Class A felonies that carry potential sentences of up to 30 years in prison.

One law enforcement official said that the amount of cocaine in the apartment was considered to be for sale rather than for personal use and that during the sting operation detectives frequently spotted other people visiting the apartment and quickly going in and out.

“It was pretty busy,” the official said.

The two were arrested about 8:30 p.m. on Monday night after officers obtained a search warrant and then used a large metal pole known as a boom to break down the door. Throughout the night, officers painstakingly searched the apartment, seizing drugs and cataloging its contents, the police said. An indictment released today by Robert M. Morgenthau, the Manhattan district attorney, said officers discovered various types of drug paraphernalia, “including crack pipes and packaging materials.” 

Mr. Chambers, who attended York Preparatory School, was 21 when he met Jennifer Levin, 18, at Dorrian’s Red Hand, a popular Upper East Side singles bar in 1986. Later that night, he strangled her in the park and left her brutalized body under a tree behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A bicyclist discovered her corpse a few hours later.

At his murder trial in 1988, Mr. Chambers’s defense was that the strangulation occurred accidentally during “rough sex,” and that Ms. Levin died as he pushed her off of him. 

As the jury deliberated, Mr. Chambers pleaded guilty to a lesser manslaughter charge and was sentenced to 15 years in state prison.

Mr. Chambers was repeatedly in trouble while incarcerated, including for the discovery of marijuana and heroin in his cell, and served his full 15-year sentence with no time off for good behavior. After his release in 2003, he again ran afoul of the law, with hundreds of dollars in unpaid parking tickets and tickets for driving without a license and driving a vehicle with an expired inspection sticker. 

In 2005, he was sent back to jail for 100 days on drug charges after the police said they found traces of heroin in his car during a traffic stop in Harlem.

Ms. Kovell was one of four lingerie-clad women videotaped at a party with Mr. Chambers while he was under indictment for murder but before the trial.

In the tape, Mr. Chambers popped the head off a doll and said, “Oops, I think I killed her.”

After his arrest last night, Mr. Chambers, dressed in sweat pants and sneakers, was taken to the East 51st Street station house, then to Manhattan Central Booking. He could spend the rest of his life in prison if convicted of the latest charges.

According to the indictment, the most serious charges against Mr. Chambers are two counts of criminal sale of a controlled substance in the first degree, which carry sentences of between 15 and 30 years in prison. He was also charged with a dozen other drug related charges — all of which carry sentences from three-and-one-half to 17 years in prison.

Ms. Kovell was charged with one count of criminal sale of a controlled substance in the second degree, which carries up to 10 years, and one count of criminal possession, which carries up to 9 years. She is scheduled to appear in court with Mr. Chambers this afternoon.