From 1995 to 2005, Leonard Levitt wrote the column "One Police Plaza" for the newspaper Newsday about the New York City police department. Before joining Newsday, he worked as a reporter for the Associated Press and the Detroit News, as a correspondent for Time Magazine, and as the investigations editor of the New York Post. His work has appeared in Harper's, Esquire and the New York Times magazine.

A graduate of Dartmouth College and the Columbia School of Journalism, Levitt served two years in the Peace Corps in Tanzania, East Africa and has been the recipient of a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation for the Humanities.

He received an Edgar Award in 2005 for his book Conviction: Solving the Moxley Murder.