Police Think Mother’s Drug Deals Supported Family

Hilary Sandra Levin, the mother arrested on suspicion of narcotics trafficking, apparently supported her family for at least a year solely on the proceeds of drug dealing, police said.

Newport Beach Police Sgt. Ron Rodgers, who led the eight-man police squad that raided the Levin house Friday, said the family had no apparent income for the last year except for alleged drug profits, most of it from sales to high school students.

“In terms of quantities of marijuana and cocaine, she may not have been a major source, but she apparently made enough money to support her family for a year,” Rodgers said.

Levin, 38, was arrested Friday on suspicion of selling narcotics to juveniles after three anonymous tips and a monthlong investigation led police to her Huntington Beach house. She is free on $25,000 bail. Her husband, Barry Wayne Levin, 43, was still in jail Tuesday at Newport City Jail with bail set at $25,000. He was arrested on suspicion of possession of cocaine for sale.

Juveniles Released

Two sons, ages 13 and 15, were also arrested on suspicion of marijuana possession. An 18-year-old son, Scott Michael Levin, posted $10,000 bail Friday night after being arrested on suspicion of possession of stolen goods.

Six juveniles in a van were arrested on suspicion of drug possession at the end of the raid when they pulled up to the house to buy marijuana, police said.

All the juveniles in the case were released to custody of their parents.

Barry Wayne Levin had been estranged from his wife until a month ago, police said, when he moved back in with his family and started work as a consultant with Fortune, an Irvine-based executive search company. Company officials declined comment.

Police said that before taking the Fortune job, Levin had been unemployed since at least last summer.

The family moved from a Newport Beach apartment to their $1,600-a-month rental home in Huntington Beach in June, police said.

‘Primary Dealer’

Police believe the mother, who has four aliases, ran the drug-dealing operation. Several informants have identified her as the “primary dealer” in the family, Rodgers said.

“When she wasn’t home and the husband was, he took over,” spokesman Kent Stoddard said. “When neither one was there, the 18-year-old would deal.”

Police believe that while Sandra Levin lived in Newport Beach, she was the primary narcotics source for students at Newport Harbor High School. “We believe her sons’ friends and associates were the main customers,” Rodgers said.

Two of the sons, Scott Levin and the 15-year-old, were students last year at the high school, police said.

Rodgers added that the family’s apartment was about a block from the high school.

He said the family had been dealing drugs for about a year, mostly in one-eighth-ounce quantities of cocaine and one-ounce bags of “high-grade” marijuana.