The personal assistant who confessed to the bludgeoning death of former Ramones manager Linda Stein systematically looted tens of thousands of dollars in cash from her boss – starting virtually from the day she began working for the so-called Realtor to the Stars, The Post has learned.
Accused killer Natavia Lowery made so many ATM withdrawals from Stein’s accounts that the Manhattan DA has shifted a financial forensic analyst full time from its fraud division to assist prosecutors and NYPD detectives probing Stein’s murder, sources said.
Sources say they believe the fiscal money trail allegedly left behind by Stein’s pregnant 26-year-old confessed murderer may lead to an account in Virginia Beach, Va., where Lowery grew up and where her boyfriend and father of her unborn child lives.
The apparent systematic thievery – all carried out with Stein’s American Express credit card – may prove to be the prime motive behind Stein’s murder, the sources say.
“There is a mountain of financial records and paperwork to sift through that we do not yet have a handle on how much was stolen,” a law enforcement source said.
“We already see that the figure is well into the tens of thousands of dollars,” another source added.
Stein’s body – her head bashed nearly a dozen times – was discovered lying in a pool of blood in her penthouse apartment last October on a day when only Lowery was in the apartment with her boss, a punk rock pioneer who once managed the Ramones.
Just days after the murder, Lowery used Stein’s cards and bought herself tickets to see her boyfriend in Virginia Beach and even pretended to be Stein to try to open more accounts in Stein’s name, prosecutors previously disclosed.
During questioning days later, Lowery initially told detectives a bizarre story about how she let a mysterious Ninja-like stranger into Stein’s apartment and then heard seven “thumps.”
Eventually, Lowery, who has a previous arrest for identity fraud, confessed to shattering Stein’s skull in a rage with a yoga bar, claiming Stein was nasty, blew marijuana smoke in her face and used racial slurs.
Lowery’s lawyer, Ron Kuby, said “the rumors coming from law enforcement about Natavia Lowery have consistently been wrong . . . and lies.”