Police Close to Charging California Prisoner in Chandra Levy Case
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Police have interviewed and are close to charging a California prison inmate in the eight-year-old case of Chandra Levy, the federal intern who vanished and was found murdered a year later, a law enforcement official told FOX News on Saturday.
The official said Washington, D.C., authorities submitted evidence to the U.S. Attorney's Office to obtain an arrest warrant for Ingmar Guandique, a Salvadoran immigrant who will be served papers in California and likely will be flown to Washington to hear the charges against him.
Guandique, 27, is in the high-security Victorville federal prison in Adelanto, Calif., the source told FOX.
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Guandique was convicted of assaulting two women in Washington's Rock Creek Park around the time of Levy's disappearance and is serving a 10-year sentence in federal prison, according to The Washington Post. It's the same park where Levy's remains were found in 2002, the year after she vanished.
Another inmate told investigators that Guandique confessed to Levy's murder, according to WRC-TV in Washington. But Guandique reportedly changed his story when speaking to police, saying that he saw Levy several times in the park but played no part in her death.
Levy's parents, Robert and Susan Levy, said Friday night that police told them there had been a break in the case.
"Your child is dead and gone and it's painful, but we're glad that the police and people are doing something, and investigating, and making a difference so somebody's not on the street to do it again," Susan Levy told KGO-TV in San Francisco.
The parents did not say when an arrest warrant might be issued.
Levy, 24, of Modesto, Calif., had just completed a D.C. internship at the U.S. Bureau of Prisons when she disappeared after leaving her apartment in jogging clothes on May 1, 2001. Her remains were found about a year later.
The cause of death was ruled a homicide, but nobody ever was charged.
Levy was romantically linked to married California Rep. Gary Condit. He acknowledged to detectives that they had an intimate relationship, but he denied any involvement in or knowledge of Levy's disappearance or death. Levy's parents also said their daughter had told them about the affair.
Though police never publicly named Condit a suspect, the negative publicity from the case was cited as the main cause of the Democrat's re-election defeat in 2002.
Condit spoke by phone Saturday to the ABC TV affiliate in Washington.
"For the Levy family, we are glad they are finally getting the answers they deserve," he told WJLA. "For my family, I am glad that their years of standing together in the face of such adversity have finally led to the truth."
Condit also blamed "an insatiable appetite for sensationalism" for hindering the search for the truth, and he is thinking about writing a book about his side of the story.
The Levys said the news did not make up for the loss of their daughter.
"I can't say we'll really feel better, because it won't bring Chandra back," Robert Levy said.
"Grief doesn't just stop overnight," Susan Levy added.
D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier said Saturday her department had no information to release in the ongoing case.
"This case generated numerous bits of information, which we continue to follow up on," she said in a statement.
After Condit did not get re-elected, he sued several media outlets that had connected him to the disappearance and death of Levy. He reached an undisclosed settlement with three tabloid newspapers.
FOX News' Mike Levine and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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