WASHINGTON 鈥� Prosecutors will no longer seek a retrial of Ingmar Guandique, the man who was charged in the death of intern Chandra Levy, and have asked for the charges against him to be dismissed, 聽the U.S. Attorney鈥檚 Office for聽D.C.聽announced Thursday.
鈥淭oday, in the interests of justice and based on recent unforeseen developments that were investigated over the past week, the office moved to dismiss the case charging Ingmar Guandique with the May 2001 murder of Chandra Levy,鈥� according to a written聽statement.
Prosecutors said they聽can no longer prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Guandique聽killed Levy and filed a motion to dismiss the case on Thursday. Later in the day, Judge Robert Morin signed an order granting the dismissal of charges.
The retrial was scheduled to begin in October.
Guandique, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador, would be released to the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for deportation, the office said.
A judge granted the retrial of Guandique聽last year after his lawyers argued that a jailhouse informant lied or gave misleading information to investigators.
Guandique was convicted in 2010 of first-degree murder and other charges and聽has been serving a 60-year sentence. He has maintained his innocence and there was no physical evidence linking him to Levy.
of attacks that Guandique committed on 聽female joggers in Rock Creek Park around the same time of Levy’s disappearance. Guandique was in prison for those two attacks and wasn鈥檛 charged in Levy鈥檚 death until 2009.
The two other women, who were able to escape Guandique, declined to comment on the case’s dismissal.
Court filings related to the retrial suggested that his defense team would try to prove a third individual, perhaps Gary Condit or someone else, had a motive to kill Levy.
The Levy case gained national attention because the 24-year-old from California was having an affair with then-Congressman Condit, a married man, when she disappeared. Her remains were found a year after her disappearance in Rock Creek Park.
Condit was eventually ruled out as a suspect.
WTOP’s Kate Ryan contributed to this report.
