International tale of intrigue begins in CB, ends in a Spanish jail cell

Arson, murder, diamonds…

In one very strange story, Crested Butte is connected to a tale of international murder, arson, diamond theft and suicide in a Spanish jail.
This valley’s connection started in December 2008 when a luxury spec home being built by a guy named Andrew Levene in Prospect caught fire and burned to the ground.

Arson was immediately suspected, and the case has been open for the last three years. The story apparently ended last week in a Spanish jail when Levene hanged himself with a bed sheet in his cell.
In between, there was a trail of unpaid bills, a jewelry heist and ultimately a murder. Mt. Crested Butte police chief Hank Smith said he is now closing the arson case. “Mr. Levene was our prime suspect but we could never prove that he was responsible,” commented Smith. “In light of this recent information, we’ll be closing the case.”
The recent information includes a charge that Levene murdered a gem dealer in Westport, Conn. last December and stole a cache of diamonds worth $300,000. According to the Westport News website, the 41-year-old Levene is accused of shooting and killing Yekutiel Zeevi and wounding a New York diamond merchant while stealing six diamonds. It is believed Levene flew from Philadelphia to Amsterdam, a hub of the international diamond trade, after the theft.
He then returned to his high-end apartment in Barcelona, where he lived with his wife and two children.
In a scenario that sounds like it came from a movie, the Spanish newspaper El Pais reported that police stood guard outside Levene’s apartment building, waiting to catch him. They apparently spent days looking for the slippery Levene, who traveled often, the newspaper reported. But they pounced on Levene when an informant in Levene’s apartment building sent a text message to a Spanish police inspector, informing him of Levene’s arrival home, El Pais reported. Before he was captured, dozens of plainclothes officers were deployed in the building, while several unmarked cars waited outside.
The Westport News and other media outlets have identified Levene as being a former Army Ranger. While in Mt. Crested Butte, Levene spread that story around to acquaintances as well. But Chief Hank Smith said he asked for a copy of Levene’s military record as part of the arson investigation and learned that he served in the military for just four months in 1992 before being discharged. “He told people who worked for him that he was a Ranger in covert ops. But he wasn’t in long enough to be a Ranger,” said Smith. “He was lying about that.”
Smith seemed to feel that that wasn’t the only thing Levene would lie about. “When his house burned to the ground we knew immediately it wasn’t an accident,” said Smith. “The sprinkler system had been turned off. Five-gallon gas cans were found in the property. Colorado Bureau of Investigation [CBI] dogs found accelerant all over the place. Whoever set it apparently underestimated how fast it would burn. CBI concluded it was an obvious arson.
“When we started the investigation we had eight suspects and we cleared them all except Levene,” Smith continued. “He had an alibi but we felt he could have been behind it. It was frustrating for us and for the CBI and for the insurance investigators because nothing could be definitively pinned on him. Looking at this information about the homicide of the jewelry dealer, it appears he was certainly capable of doing things like this. I never had a good vibe from him. There were all sorts of shady financial deals associated with him going on in the background. I think very early on, we all felt that this was our guy.”
Levene apparently was about a half million dollars in debt when he hanged himself in the jail last week and this was one reason investigators believe he stole the diamonds.
According to delewareonline.com, his financial woes had tentacles stretching back to Mt. Crested Butte. A lawsuit filed in July 2010 in Chancery Court in Delaware was related “to a failed property deal that apparently left Levene in ‘personal poverty.’ The plaintiffs in that case said Levene sought $445,000 from them to purchase land in Crested Butte, Colo., to build a luxury home, which was later destroyed by fire,” according to delawareonline.com. “The suit claimed Levene received more than $2 million in insurance proceeds from the fire but failed to distribute the money to the investors, who had a 42 percent stake in the deal, or provide them with any financial records,” according to the report. In April 2011, the plaintiffs dropped the suit after apparently resolving their differences, delawareonline.com stated.
Though Levene had been facing extradition for a federal court trial in Connecticut, it was unclear how smoothly that process may have proceeded since the U.S. extradition treaty with Spain appears to block the transfer of a suspect if he or she were to face the death penalty in this nation.
Local contractor Steve Hecker had finished the house that burned down. “He had fired the original general contractor and he hired me as a liaison to finish the project,” Hecker explained. “It worked out well and he hired me to build a second house in Prospect. But after a while it became obvious he was having some financial problems with he and his partners. He wanted me to slow down the project and cut the crew in half. Stuff like that. We had a conversation and I told him if he didn’t like how it was going he should fire me. He did. After he fired me, he wouldn’t pay me what he owed me, which was a lot of money.”
Hecker said soon after he parted ways with Levene he was traveling back to Chicago to visit family when he got a call that the original house had burned down. “When I learned of the circumstances, it was obvious that it wasn’t an accident.”
In the meantime, Hecker hired a lawyer to help get Levene and his partners to pay him what was owed. “We went through a big deposition process but he wouldn’t come to Crested Butte to do his deposition,” Hecker said. “We had to go to Aspen and that was the last time I saw him. He looked stressed out and disheveled. It was a crazy time with him and his partners.”
Hecker said he ultimately settled for about half of what he was owed. “There was a time when everyone was happy, getting paid well, and we got along and he’d take me up in his plane,” reminisced Hecker. “I kind of knew the guy was on the creepy side but I never thought it would end up like this. When it all hit the fan with us, it went down huge. I mean I always felt like I was swimming in a tank full of sharks with him and his partners, especially at the end. And I thought maybe the guy had a weird future in front of him But I never thought it would end like this to the extent it did. I mean murder? Jeez.
“But frankly, Levene messed with a lot of people’s lives up here,” Hecker continued. “In some ways, he may have got what he deserved. Karma is kind of a bitch.”