Thursday, June 4, 2015

Bulletin: Ingmar Guandique: Washington; A judge has ordered a new for him in the killing of federal intern Chandra Levy 1n 2001. Guandique's lawyers contend that The government did not disclose to the defense that their key witness, a convicted drug dealer and gang member, had cooperated with prosecutors in other cases. No eyewitness, forensic evidence, nor medical cause of death linked Guandique to Levy’s death. Prosecutors did not oppose the mistrial motion. Washibgton Post.

A Washington judge on Thursday granted a new trial to the man convicted of killing federal intern Chandra Levy in 2001, after prosecutors dropped their opposition to a defense request to re-try the case. D.C. Superior Court Judge Gerald I. Fisher, who presided over the 2010 trial that sentenced Ingmar Guandique, 34, to 60 years in prison, set aside the verdict and agreed to bring the case before a new judge and jury. “Unless there is something else to be said, I would grant the motion for a new trial,” Fisher said in a brief hearing attended by Guandique, who was dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit. Since 2013, Guandique’s D.C. Public Defender Service attorneys have argued that his conviction “was based on a lie,” purportedly spun by a former cellmate who they said testified that Guandique confessed to killing Levy in a bid to win favor with prosecutors. The government did not disclose to the defense that their key witness, a convicted drug dealer and gang member, had cooperated with prosecutors in other cases, Guandique’s attorneys argued.........The case triggered a media sensation when police investigators at first suspected and then cleared Gary A. Condit, a married California congressman who was 30 years her senior, and with whom Levy was conducting an affair.........No eyewitness, forensic evidence, nor medical cause of death linked Guandique to Levy’s death. But other women joggers assaulted in Rock Creek Park at the time testified against Guandique, who was serving 10 years in prison for assaulting two women at knife point in the park when he was charged with Levy’s death. Onetime cellmate, Armando Morales, testified that Guandique had told him he was high on drugs, saw Levy walking alone with a waist pouch and attacked her for cash. Jon Anderson, one of Guandique’s public defenders, said that although Morales testified at trial that he had never cooperated with prosecutors in other cases, federal prosecutors in the District knew or should have known that he had offered to testify in the past for favorable treatment."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/dc-judge-grants-re-trial-in-2001-killing-of-intern-chandra-levy/2015/06/04/0a282286-09fd-11e5-a7ad-b430fc1d3f5c_story.html?wpisrc=al_alert-COMBO-local%252Bnational