Suspect in Teacher’s Killing Says Others Are Responsible

The man accused of murdering his former teacher told police he was in Jonathan Levin’s apartment the day he was killed but fled after two armed intruders burst in, according to the criminal complaint released Sunday.

Corey Arthur told police he went to Levin’s Upper West Side apartment on May 30. Arthur said two people came in--one brandishing a gun, the other a knife--and ordered him to bind Levin with duct tape, which he said he did, the complaint said.

Arthur, 19, said he struggled with “the man with the knife” and ran from the apartment. He said he did not learn until later that Levin had been killed and didn’t turn himself in because he thought police would think he was the killer.

Levin, a popular English teacher and son of Time Warner CEO Gerald Levin, was bound with duct tape and tortured with a knife, apparently to get him to reveal the password for his bank card. He was then killed with a gunshot to the head.

Arthur and an alleged accomplice, Montoun Hart, 25, were arraigned Sunday, a day after they were arrested. Neither man entered a plea or requested bail. The case is scheduled to go to a grand jury this week.

The court papers also disclosed that investigators found a bloodstained knife in Levin’s apartment--lying on a table beside a shred of duct tape. The gun has not been found.

Police said Arthur, a dropout from Taft High School in the Bronx where Levin taught, killed Levin and used his ATM card to withdraw $800 from his account.

In the criminal complaint, Arthur said he did not know Hart and denied that Hart was with him in Levin’s apartment.

But Hart told authorities he went with Arthur to Levin’s apartment after agreeing to rob the teacher. According to the court papers, Hart said Arthur “brandished a gun and shot the victim,” and then used his bank card. Hart said Arthur gave him $100 after the slaying.

The complaint said that five days later, an unidentified witness reported hearing Arthur say “he shot the teacher and Monty was with him, and that Monty tied up the teacher and stabbed him.”