A just-released Fort Lauderdale Police affidavit describes how Ryan LeVin and Derek Cook partied all night February 12, then into the morning of February 13, a party that came to a gruesome end around 2:18 a.m., when LeVin's speeding Porsche careered off Seabreeze Boulevard and struck two British tourists, killing them.
The night began around 9 p.m. at the Las Olas nightclub/restaurant YOLO, where LeVin met his girlfriend, Krystyna Plewa, who was celebrating her birthday with her family.
Around 12:45 a.m. on February 13, police say that LeVin met Derek Cook at Solid Gold, a strip club on Federal Highway near Oakland Park Boulevard. Cell phone records suggest the two stayed there at least till 1:30.
They were gone by 2, and at 2:06, LeVin was stopped by a Fort Lauderdale cop at the intersection of Federal Highway near East Sunrise Boulevard, close to the Gateway Theatre. The police affidavit says that LeVin was given a verbal warning, then
allowed to leave. Roughly five minutes later, he allegedly struck and
killed Kenneth Watkinson and Craig Elford.
Around this same time, the affidavit says that cell phone records show Cook jumping on I-95 from Oakland Park Boulevard and heading north, presumably to his home in Tamarac.
A camera mounted on top of the Courtyard Marriott Hotel on Seabreeze Boulevard captured a drag race between two southbound cars. LeVin's Porsche could be seen skidding off the road and into the two British tourists who were on the sidewalk.
At 2:22 -- four minutes after the crash -- police found a call from Cook to LeVin, and cell phone records indicate Cook had turned around and was heading south on I-95, that he exited at Marina Mile, then drove east. Records show that at the same time, LeVin was at South Beach Park on Seabreeze Boulevard, not far from the site of the accident.
Security records show that Cook arrived at 2:27 to pick up LeVin at the Point of America condo on Seabreeze Boulevard.
Three minutes later, at 2:30, the pair were caught on video at the Hess gas station on SE 17th Street, pumping gas into Cook's car. By 2:53, Fort Lauderdale police were alerted about a hit-and-run vehicle that was missing a headlight.
At 3:04, a police detective in an unmarked car pulled up behind the Porsche and Cook's BMW at the intersection of SE 17th Street and SE 23rd Avenue. The cars headed west on 17th, over the causeway, and at the next light, the detective activated her emergency lights. The Porsche sped away, going through red lights at Cordova, then at Federal Highway. Another officer recorded the Porsche entering an I-595 ramp at a speed of roughly 100 mph.
LeVin, however, pulled over on 17th Street. He told the officer that he had met Derek Cook at Blue Martini, where the two switched cars, around 1:30. LeVin said that he left the nightclub and returned to his condo, where he waited for Cook. He told police that Cook had been racing the Porsche on Seabreeze Boulevard at the time the two pedestrians were struck and killed.
