The convicted killer of a Washington D.C. intern is getting a new trial.
Washington D.C. Superior Court Judge Gerald Fisher made the ruling on Thursday, allowing Ingmar Guandique, who was convicted five years ago for the 2001 murder of Chandra Levy, a second chance to state his case, according to The Washington Post. Guandique's public defense team began fighting for a new trial in 2013, arguing that the prosecution's main witness lied in order to help his own fortune with the state.
Up until Thursday the state had fought the demand for a new trial.
"The government 'continues to believe the verdict was correct,' prosecutors said, but the 'passage of time and the unique circumstances of this case' made preparing their opposition to the defense motion more difficult," The Washington Post reported.
At the time of her death, Levy was 24 and interning for the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Her remains were found at D.C.'s Rock Creek Park in 2002. Levy's disappearance and the subsequent trial were major news stories because of her affair with former U.S. Rep. Gary Condit, who at one time was a suspect in the case.
Guandique was already serving a 10-year sentence for assaulting a pair of women at the very same park when he was charged with murdering Levy. Police were never able to scientifically, through forensics or an autopsy, connect Guandique to the murder. There were no eyewitness either, but a number of woman testified that Guandique had been seen assaulting others in the park.
The key witness prosecutors called, Armando Morales, formerly shared a cell with Guandique in prison. He testified that Guandique told him he was under the influence of drugs in Rock Creek Park and saw Levy walking alone so he attacked her for money. Issues in the testimony arose when the defense argued that Morales wasn't telling the truth:
"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," The Washington Post reported. Prosecutors have continuously denied the allegations.
Washington D.C. Superior Court Judge Gerald Fisher, who presided over the original trial will not partake in the new one. He announced on Thursday that instead, D.C. Superior Court Judge Robert E. Morin will.
