Jewish man charged with hate crime for drawing swastikas pleads guilty to lesser charge
A Jewish Uptown resident who was charged with a hate crime for drawing swastikas in his neighborhood before Election Day last November has pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of knowingly damaging property.
Heath A. Levey, 52, was sentenced to 153 days time served and released after rendering his plea to the reduced charge last week.
Levey was charged with hate crime after neighbors identified him as the man who drew swastikas and references to the CIA on their property in the 800 block of West Eastwood and another nearby home on Nov. 2nd, four days before the mid-term elections.
At the time of Levey’s arrest, CWBChicago reported exclusively that he had also been arrested in the days leading up to the 2016 presidential election. An Uptown woman accused him of forcing open her front gate, “stomping hard on the ground while menacingly charging” toward her front door while shouting, “I’m going to rape you, you f*cking Republican! I’m calling the CIA! I’m going to kill all the women and children!”
Levey reached a deal with prosecutors in which he pleaded guilty to damaging the woman’s gate while the state dropped assault charges. He was sentenced to 18 months probation and fined $265.
Friends of Levey on Facebook, contacted by CWBChicago in November, said he comes from a Jewish family and has been a professed Democrat for years.