The Nation - News from March 17, 1988

Assistant Dist. Atty. Linda Fairstein, the prosecutor in the “preppie murder” trial in New York state Supreme Court in Manhattan, suggested in closing statements that the defendant, Robert Chambers, 21, strangled a teen-age woman after a bitter Central Park argument about his alcohol-induced impotence. Earlier, Chambers’ attorney ridiculed the prosecution version of the death of Jennifer Levin, 18, and said his client accidentally killed her during rough sex in the park in the early morning of Aug. 26, 1986. “What he was doing was reacting to the pain,” lawyer Jack Litman said during his four-hour summation. Chambers, who attended exclusive schools in the New York area, is charged with second-degree murder.