Daniel "Professor Dan" Levey (born c. 1875) was a 19th and 20th century American criminal, operating in Maryland,[1] New York,[2] Pennsylvania,[3] Massachusetts, Oregon and California.

Nevertheless, in a short period of time, he started committing crimes and disappeared, setting off a one month manhunt nationwide before being caught.

In that time, he managed to raise his financial fortunes enough that he thought he might be able to return to the Baltimore society life he had begun enjoying.

[17] Soon after, Levey borrowed money, much of it from his wife's family, to open a business that included gym facilities, a barbershop, and Turkish baths.

[19] He also spent lavishly on personal items and was a backer of sports competitions, including wrestling[20] and horse racing during this period,[21][22] and was an involved spectator at such events.

He forged his brother's name on a Brooklyn check or bill of exchange,[27] which bounced after being cashed at a local bank, and stole jewelry from a pawn shop, on a pretense of brokering a sale of the goods.

That evening, he ran off for several days with his cashier and bookkeeper, Emma Kaufman, and sent word to Mrs. Levey that he was away unexpectedly on business.

[1] Miss Kaufman reappeared on Tuesday, with information that she thought Levey had headed for Chicago, though she denied romantic involvement with him.

In that time, he made his way to San Francisco and Oakland, California, winning and losing a fortune betting on horses.

[5] By the time he had left, bookmakers were looking to have him arrested for repaying money he borrowed to make some of his debts, via bad checks.

In the meantime, Baltimore creditors petitioned the court system to declare the Levey businesses bankrupt,[28] and were granted the motion within a few days.

[31] By January 16 and 17, Brooklyn and New York (Manhattan) police had respectively matched him to a teenage criminal[2] who had been sentenced to state prison half a decade earlier.

[3] His New York arrest record included: Police followed leads in Fort Worth[3] and Philadelphia,[33] but Levey managed to elude them each time, though some sightings may have been false.

[35] Some found his holdings to be persuasive of his abilities and uprightness,[36] Gertrude Levey was intimately involved in the capture of her husband, working closely with Baltimore Captain of Detectives Aquilla J.

[38][39] Levey had written his wife in mid-January from California, expressing a wish to rejoin her, but without leaving a forwarding address.

(Levey stated that he came to New York to win back his family, and particularly to show that he would never disgrace his elderly mother, whose confidence he had always retained.)

Mrs. Levey's description is consistent with her husband being in contact with his mother in Brooklyn, whereas the initial newspaper reports have the arrest taking place in Manhattan.)

[51] Maryland's Governor Warfield received a petition in October 1904 to pardon Levey, with the support of his creditors, on the assumption that he would enter the Brooklyn family business and pay back his debt.

Trading on some minor notoriety his then-wife had gained in a contest, he had come up with a scheme around 1907 to charge applicants a fee to join non-existent vaudeville companies.