Seal of the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office




LIFE PLUS 30 FOR SECOND GUNMAN IN YOUNG WOMAN’S HOMICIDE

April 8, 2009

A Suffolk Superior Court judge today blasted a 35-year-old Dorchester man’s “egregious history of gun violence” before handing him a state prison sentence of life followed by 30 years for starting the gunfight that killed 22-year-old Chiara Levin.

Judge Frank Gaziano sentenced MANUEL “SPANK” ANDRADE (D.O.B. 10/30/73) of Dorchester to life in prison without the possibility of parole for Levin’s murder; a term of nine to 10 years for shooting a Roxbury man inside a crowded after-hours party moments before Levin was killed on March 24, 2007; four to five years for pointing his .380 semiautomatic handgun at a rival as he left that party; nine to 10 years for shooting at him from within an arm’s length of the car in which Levin and her friends sat during the gunfight that followed; and four to five years for possessing the unregistered firearm in the first place.

Gaziano further ordered that those prison terms run consecutive to one another.

“It’s been said that no parents should have to bury their child,” Gaziano said from the bench. “Let me add to that that no parents should have to watch their child’s bloodstained clothing displayed to a jury.”

Gaziano called Levin, who had met Andrade just hours before she was killed, an “innocent victim” and drew attention to Andrade’s previous convictions for firearms offenses, armed robbery, and armed assault with intent to kill, for which he had received multiple state prison sentences.

“That did not deter him,” Gaziano said.

Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley, whose office prosecuted Andrade and his co-defendant, CASIMIRO BARROS (D.O.B. 6/10/86) of Roxbury, hailed the sentence.

“Chiara Levin died because of this man’s choice to start a gunfight in a crowded house on a residential street,” Conley said. “He brought a loaded gun to a party, shot a man at point blank range, and sparked the shootout that took her life. He had no regard for anyone’s safety. He had no regard for anything but his own pride. That no one else was killed is pure luck. He deserves every day of this sentence.”

Prior to sentencing, members of Levin’s family addressed the court to tell of the impact her murder had on them.

Of receiving closure from two convictions for his daughter’s homicide, William Levin called the notion “a trite, facile, and misunderstood term if there ever was one.”

“I fear the possibility of never seeing my wife – or myself for that matter – ever again truly and deeply happy or even content, wounded to the core as we are by a tragedy from which there is no recovery,” he said, even as he thanked “the several brave witnesses who went against the grain in daring to provide truthful information and testimony, proving that meekness and fear driven by a herd mentality do not have to triumph.”

Grazia Levin, the victim’s mother, told the court that “I am lost in the present. I am walking this world as a ghost, a world that has become an endless desert … dense with pain.”

In the lilting accent of her native Italian, she praised “the moral awareness of the witnesses who broke the gang-protective silence that allowed justice to take its course” and offered those witnesses her “thanks from the bottom of my heart.”

Today’s sentencing marked the end of a two-year investigation and prosecution that began after Andrade, his cousin, and an associate met Levin and two male friends outside a Tremont Street nightclub and took them to an after-hours party at 415 Geneva Ave. in Dorchester. While they were at the party, another group arrived, this one comprised of Barros and other Roxbury men with whom Andrade and his friends had a long-standing feud. Andrade was armed with a .380 semiautomatic handgun, while Barros was armed with a 9mm semiautomatic handgun.

Eventually, Andrade, Levin, and their respective associates left the party. All but Andrade piled into Andrade’s cousin’s black Cadillac Escalade. After a short conversation, Andrade walked back into the party while his cousin moved the Escalade to the intersection directly in front of 415 Geneva Ave.

Inside the party, Andrade engaged one of the Roxbury men verbally, threw a plate of rice in his face, and shot him point-blank in the chest. As other partygoers screamed and scattered – but did not call police – Andrade walked calmly out the front door, passing Barros and pointing the gun at him.

Andrade walked out with Barros directly behind him. Andrade approached the Escalade and adopted a firing stance. The two men opened fire on one another. One of Barros’ rounds struck Levin in the head, mortally wounding her.

Andrade’s cousin drove Levin to Boston Medical Center, pausing to drop Andrade off on Adams Street. Levin was pronounced dead of her injury shortly after arrival. The man Andrade shot inside the party also admitted himself to the BMC, where he was treated for a collapsed lung.

After an extensive investigation in the Suffolk County Special Grand Jury, both Barros and Andrade were arrested by Boston Police homicide detectives and subsequently indicted for first-degree murder and other offenses. Though indicted together, the men’s cases were severed prior to trial over prosecutors’ objections.

Under Massachusetts law, Barros’ intent to kill Andrade transferred to Levin when the bullet he fired at his intended target struck her instead. He was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and other offenses after trial and is now serving a 30-year state prison sentence.

Andrade was prosecuted in accordance with the 1997 Supreme Judicial Court decision in Commonwealth v. Santiago, in which the high court wrote that “where the defendant chooses to engage in a gun battle with another with the intent to kill or do grievous bodily harm and a third party is killed, the defendant may be held liable for the homicide even if it was the defendant’s opponent who fired the fatal shot.”

Barros was represented by attorney Christopher Belezos. Andrade was represented by attorney Rosemary Scapicchio. Assistant District Attorney Edmond Zabin, chief of Conley’s Homicide Unit, prosecuted both cases with Assistant District Attorney Delayne Austin.