Illegal immigrant convicted of murdering Chandra Levy in 2001 will be RELEASED and WON'T be retried

Looks like the slime Gary Condit (D) did it

The man convicted over the 2001 murder of Washington intern Chandra Levy will be released after prosecutors dropped the charges following 'unforeseen development.'

The U.S. Attorney's office said in a statement released Thursday that the office has moved to dismiss the case charging Ingmar Guandique with Levy's 2001 murder.

According to the statement, prosecutors concluded they could not convict Guandique, who is originally from El Salvador, 'based on recent unforeseen developments that were investigated over the past week.' The statement does not elaborate.

Levy's 2001 disappearance created a national sensation after the Modesto, California, native was romantically linked with then-Congressman Gary Condit.

Condit, 68, was considered a person of interest in Chandra's disappearance and murder prior to Guandique's conviction but never named as an official suspect by police.

In May this year, counsel for Guandique indicated they would present evidence at his planned retrial that would implicate Condit in Chandra Levy murder.

Levy's remains were found in Washington's Rock Creek Park in 2002. Prosecutors argued her death fitted a pattern of attacks Guandique committed on female joggers. At the time, he was serving 10 years in prison for attacking two other women in the park.

He was found guilty in 2010 of Levy's murder but was granted a new trial in 2015 after his attorneys argued a key witness gave false or misleading testimony.

That witness was Condit, a former California Congressman who knew the 24-year-old Bureau of Prisons intern but refused to answer questions about the nature of their relationship while under oath during her murder trial, despite the fact that the married father of two had admitted to authorities that he had an affair with the intern.

Guandique's attorney, Eugene Ohm, claimed that notes from a police interview he gave after Chandra's disappearance conflicted with his 2010 testimony in the case. Ohm did not elaborate.

In a motion filed in May, Guandique's legal team wrote that Condit had a 'powerful' and 'obvious' motivation for killing Chandra - his affair with the much younger college student. 'Mr. Condit was fully aware of the cost he could pay if his affair with Ms. Levy became public,' the defense motion states.

'He therefore had an obvious motive to kill Ms. Levy in order to keep the relationship secret, and an equally powerful motive to cover-up the circumstances of her death if she died while she was with him — either through his intentional conduct or otherwise.'

Guandique's conviction was based primarily on the testimony of Guandique's former cellmate Armando Morales, who said Guandique told him he was responsible for Levy's death. Guandique's defense lawyers argued Morales' testimony was unreliable and that there was no physical evidence linking Guandique to the the murder.

A statement released today said: 'Pending action by the Court, Mr. Guandique will then be released to the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, where he faces removal proceedings.

A spokeswoman for Guandique's lawyers said Thursday that the informant who reported that Guandique confessed to the crime was found to have lied.

'It is now clear that the jailhouse informant, who was central to the government’s case, was a perjurer who too easily manipulated the prosecutors," Laura E. Hankins said in a statement.

In May this year, the intern's mother, Susan Levy, was shocked to learn that her daughter allegedly had rough bondage sex with Condit.

She also supported Guandique's legal push to depose at least two women who said they both had affairs with the former congressman over claims that 'he tied them up' during sex, the New York Daily News reported. 'It's very hard to hear about this,' Susan Levy told the Daily News. 'But I want the truth to come out, and I want them to follow every lead.'

Guandique's lawyers said at the time that the jogging tights tied in knots near the former Washington, DC intern's body could be linked to circumstantial evidence that the women could provide about Condit's 'desire to engage in aggressive sex and tie a woman up'.

The defense also attempted to convince Judge Robert Morin to allow depositions to be taken from three women who claim to have had affairs with Condit as well as a friend who worked as his former driver and bodyguard.

According to the Daily News, the motion filing stated that Condit's sperm was located on a pair of the Chandra's underwear, 'conclusively' proving that they indeed had an affair.

In addition, the motion also stated that the first woman allegedly told authorities that she and the seven-term congressman engaged in 'aggressive sex' a few months prior to when Chandra disappeared on May 1, 2001.

The first woman allegedly said she was 'scared' by his aspiration to tie her up with his neck ties and fasten them to a bed.

At the time, Susan Levy said that she was not against Guandique's actions in requesting a retrial, but still misses her daughter.

'Talk about knots — I have a knot in my stomach and in my throat,' the heartbroken mother said. 'Even if they do find the truth, I won't ever have my daughter back. 'Put yourself in my situation.Your child is supposed to come home for graduation and never does.'

Chandra's remains were not found until a year after she disappeared. Guandique's lawyers argue that the location her bones were found in Rock Creek Park were less than three miles away from Condit's apartment.

The defense was also going to suggest that Chandra was tied up during the murder, basing this on the fact that a pair of knotted tights were found near her body.

Chandra was last heard from on May 1, 2001 when she emailed her parents Susan and Robert to inform them about her travel plans as she prepared to head home to California for her graduation.

She had ended her apartment lease and cancelled her gym membership in the area around this time as well according to authorities.

Her parents attempted to contact her for three days before reaching out to police on May 5 and filing a missing persons report.

The next day, on May 6, they called Condit, who was their congressman in California, for help locating their daughter.

Condit and Chandra had a friendship according to the congressman, though it was later reported that the two were far closer and that the married politician had been intimate with Chandra while the University of Southern California student was interning in the nation's capitol.

In the months after Chandra's disappearance more and more details were revealed about her relationship with Condit, which led him to hire a criminal defense team while still denying he had anything to do with her disappearance.

A search of the park where the young woman often jogged meanwhile turned up no evidence suggesting that Chandra had been in the area when she went missing.

Authorities announced that July there was a good chance that Chandra's body might never be found, and though Condit was cleared as a suspect his political career never recovered and he was defeated in the California primary the following March.

Two months after that, in May 2002, a man found human bones and a skull in Washington's Rock Creek Park, where police had previously searched for Chandra's body.

The park's administrative office was also one of the last searches on Condit's computer the day that Chandra went missing.

It was months before the discovery of Chandra's body however that Guandique was introduced as a suspect, when a prison informant said he had spoke about murdering Chandra.

Guandique had also been accused of assaulting two other female joggers in the park.

He was behind bars at the time on drug charges but was never formally charged in the death of Chandra and her case went cold until 2006 when it was reopened by the city's new police chief.

After a three-year investigation, Guandique was charged with Chandra's murder in 2009 and later indicted on six counts including kidnapping, first-degree murder committed during a kidnapping, attempted first-degree sexual abuse, first-degree murder committed during a sexual offense, attempted robbery, and first-degree murder committed during a robbery.

He was convicted in November 2010 and sentenced to 60 years in prison the following February.

Original report here


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