So apparently it’s not safe out here for an intern! Well at least not for Chandra Levy who went missing in May 2001, and found dead in Rock Creek Park in 2002. No one was arrested for her murder until 2009, and yesterday, Ingmar Guandique was found guilty and sentenced to 60 years in prison. Full story after the jump..
[WP] – Ingmar Guandique, 29, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador, was convicted on November of two counts of first-degree felony murder, one related to Levy’s kidnapping and the other related to an attempted robbery.
On Friday, Judge Gerald I. Fisher sentenced him to 60 years in prison.
In a one-page letter written to a Washington Post reporter and dated Jan. 22, Guandique said he was innocent. The letter, handwritten in Spanish, said the evidence presented by the government and authorities “was false.”
“Everything about this case was a stupid, comedic farce that the detectives and prosecutors have engaged in,” Guandique wrote. “I know there are people who believe in my innocence and to those people who believe in my innocence I say you are not mistaken, because I am innocent.” Guandique said he was a scapegoat.
Prosecutors had asked Fisher to sentence Guandique to life in prison without parole.
In a sentencing memo to Fisher, prosecutors wrote that Guandique “demonstrated predatory behavior that seems incapable of rehabilitation” and that Guandique “posed a grave danger” to the community.
The memo described events prosecutors say involved Guandique and other women — examples that were not in evidence at trial. Prosecutors said Guandique had numerous improper encounters with women including attacking a woman at knifepoint in El Salvador before migrating to the U.S. when he was 19.
While in prison, prosecutors said Guandique also wrote graphic letters with drawings to female insurance agents and masturbated in front of a female prison guard.
Guandique’s lawyers did not make their memo public.
In requesting a new trial, Guandique’s attorneys from the District’s Public Defender Service had previously argued that there was juror misconduct during deliberations. They cited a Washington Post article quoting a juror saying that the panel shared their notes during deliberations because one juror did not take any.
Guandique’s attorneys had argued that Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Haines focused on prior acts by Guandique in her closing arguments that were not in evidence at trial.
