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Robert Levinson Fast Facts
CNN Library
Updated 6:47 PM ET, Thu March 1, 2018
Robert Levinson (CNN)Here's a look at Robert Levinson, who went missing in Iran.
Timeline:
Personal:
Birth date: March 10, 1948
Birth place: Flushing, New York
Birth name: Robert Alan Levinson
Father: name unavailable publicly
Mother: name unavailable publicly
Marriage: Christine (Gorman) Levinson
Children: Douglas; Samantha; David; Daniel; Sarah; Stephanie; Susan
Education: Attended New York University; City College of New York, B.A., 1970
Other Facts:
During his career at the FBI, Levinson specialized in investigating organized crime in Russia.
His family says Levinson suffers from diabetes and high blood pressure among other illnesses.
1970s - Levinson is hired by the FBI after six years with the Drug Enforcement Agency.
1998 - Levinson retires from the FBI.
1998-2007 - Levinson works as a private investigator.
2006 - Levinson is hired as a contractor by Tim Sampson, head of the Illicit Finance Group within the Office of Transnational Issues at the CIA, to write reports for the agency. The contract is for approximately $85,000. Three CIA employees, including Sampson, later lose their jobs for overstepping their authority as analysts and withholding information about Levinson after he disappeared.
March 8-9, 2007 - According to State Department officials, Levinson travels to Kish Island in Iran and checks into a hotel. Reportedly, Levinson is in the Mideast to investigate cigarette smuggling on behalf of a client. During the visit, he meets with American fugitive Dawud Salahuddin, who is the last person to acknowledge seeing him on March 9.
June 1, 2007 - President George W. Bush says he is "disturbed" by Iran's refusal to provide any information on Levinson. "I call on Iran's leaders to tell us what they know about his whereabouts."
December 2007 - Levinson's wife, Christine, meets with government officials in Iran, but does not learn anything about her husband's disappearance.
2008 - The CIA pays the Levinson family more than $2 million to head off a lawsuit, according to family attorney David McGee.
January 13, 2009 - During the nomination hearings of future Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Senator Bill Nelson of Florida says, "Senator Clinton, you've already been briefed on this, but one of the things that you're going to face is there is an American that is missing in Iran... I have gone to the Iranian Ambassador at the United Nations, who will see me even though his government will not allow him to talk to our UN Ambassador. He operates under the fiction that he will see me because I'm a representative of the people of the state of Florida. But the door has been closed at every turn. What I have said to him, and I speak through the lens of this Committee hearing, that out of human compassion this is a great opportunity for the country of Iran to crack the door, because we think he is being held by the Government of Iran in a secret prison in Iran. And if we want to have some renewed relations, this is a good first opportunity."
March 3, 2011 - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says that evidence is growing that Levinson is alive and being held somewhere in southwest Asia.
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Poster Comment:
Levinson's family has filed suit against Iran in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. https://www.cnn.com/2014/03/05/world/robert-levinson-fast-facts/index.html