In March 2009, Guandique was arrested for Levy’s abduction and murder after Armando Morales, a fellow inmate of Guandique’s, reported that Guandique had confessed to the crime. Guandique went to trial in District of Columbia Superior Court in October 2010 on charges of first-degree murder, kidnapping and attempted robbery.
On November 22, 2010, Guandique was convicted of all charges. He was sentenced to 60 years in prison. After conviction, Guandique’s attorneys contended that Morales’ testimony was false and that Guandique was innocent.
Rep. Gary Condit, a married seven-term Democratic representative from California who was having an affair with Levy. Condit denied any knowledge of Levy’s disappearance and he was never charged, but the disclosure of his relationship with Levy ended his political career.
No forensic or physical evidence linked him to the crime. Morales testified that while he and Guandique were both in a federal prison in Kentucky, Guandique described the following sequence of events: Guandique saw Levy running in Rock Creek Park with a fanny pack and decided to rob her, but did not intend to kill her.
When a jury found Ingmar Guandique guilty of murder in 2010, it seemed as if the case had finally come to a close. But two years later, that conviction was overturned and a new trial ordered after questions surfaced about a key witness in the case.
The prosecutors’ attorneys argue that if the public defenders did not received the first page, they should have requested it because Pages 2 and 3 were clearly identified by numbers at the top of each page.
Morales told prosecutors Guandique told him that he accidentally killed Levy while trying to rob her. At trial, Morales testified about Guandique’s alleged confession. Guandique’s public defenders asked Morales if he had ever cooperated with authorities in exchange for favors. Morales said that the Levy case was his first time providing such cooperation and that he received no benefit from authorities.
He was sentenced to 60 years in prison. Ingmar Guandique convicted of first-degree murder of former intern Chandra Levy. In 2012, two years after Guandique’s conviction, Haines and Campoamor-Sanchez learned of another meeting between Morales and law enforcement. In 1998, Morales had given authorities information about two murders, ...
A Justice spokesman declined to comment on the investigation. Dillon, also a former federal prosecutor, said Haines retired this month after 30 years as a litigator, more than 20 years of which was spent as a prosecutor in Washington. The 59-year-old Haines, Dillon said, remains licensed to practice law in Washington and New York.
Morales’s testimony was key for the prosecution because there was no forensic evidence or witness linking Guandique to Levy’s death.
In 2006, Morales shared a cell with Guandique in a federal prison in Kentucky. Guandique was serving time for assaults on women in Rock Creek Park that occurred around the time Levy disappeared.
Guandique, who has been incarcerated since his arrest in 2001 for other crimes against women, was convicted by a jury in November 2010, of charges of first degree felony murder with the aggravating circumstances of kidnapping and attempted robbery. He was sentenced in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia by Judge Gerald I. Fisher, who presided at the trial.
He pleaded guilty in September 2001, to assault charges stemming from the May 14 and July 1 incidents. He is serving a 10-year prison sentence for those crimes and was due to be released at the end of December 2010.
Guandique stalked one of the women on May 1, 2001, the day that Ms. Levy disappeared. He accosted another of the women while she was jogging on May 14, 2001, grabbing her from around the neck at knifepoint. She got away during an ensuing struggle. Then, on July 1, 2001, Guandique attacked another woman who was jogging, also grabbing her at knifepoint. That victim also got away after a terrifying struggle with the defendant.