Condit was dismissed as a suspect in the case.
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If not for a chance meeting at a Maryland hotel, prosecutors might still be working on the re-trial of Guandique, a Salvadoran gang member, in the 2001 murder of intern Chandra Levy.
According to the Washington Post,”The U.S. Attorney’s Office would not comment on Proller’s account and said only that “new information” uncovered this week had led prosecutors to conclude that they could not prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt”.
Susan Levy, mother of Chandra Levy, poses for a photo outside her home in Modesto, Calif., Friday, July 29, 2016.
Here is everything you need to know about the case.
Proller, in an interview with The Post, said that she and Morales met July 6.
FILE – In this May 28, 2002 pool-file photo taken at the Modesto Centre Plaza in Modesto, Calif., photos of Chandra Levy are on display as musicians, right, stand by at the memorial service for Levy.
Gaundique was arrested September 2001 after her remains were found in a Washington D.C. park. But a search of the park found nothing.
A lawyer for Gary Condit, who was cleared by police as a suspect in the case, released a statement on the Attorney Office’s decision. Gary A. Condit, from California, who was married. There was no forensic evidence and no eyewitness. Condit was not charged in the case.
Levy was an intern on Capitol Hill when she disappeared in May 2001. But because there was little physical evidence, prosecutors did not charge Guandique with Levy’s murder until 2009. Guandique had already been convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison for attacks on female joggers in Rock Creek Park, and prosecutors argued Levy’s death fit the pattern of those attacks. He was sentenced to 60 years in prison.
While prosecutors had the chilling testimonies of Guandique’s other victims, most of their case rested on a jailhouse informant who said the criminal confessed to killing Chandra.
A key part of the prosecution’s 2010 case against Guandique relied on testimony from Guandique’s former cellmate. And the defense lawyers said Condit had “obvious motive to kill Ms. Levy in order to keep the relationship secret”.
But Guandique was granted a new trial previous year after doubts were raised about a jailhouse informant, Armando Morales, who was the key witness at Guandique’s trial. “He’s out of jail and he’s telling the truth…” Proller reportedly taped the conversation, but ABC News has not been able to verify the contents of that tape. During the whole trial, Guandique insisted he was innocent, and it appears now, after the breaking developments that remain confidential to the public, he will receive legal confirmation of his innocence. Initially Levy’s murder investigation focused on the lawmaker, but he was eventually cleared. Bill Miller, a spokesman for the USA attorney’s office, declined to say whether the recordings prompted prosecutors to seek dismissal of the case.
Proller claims that in the tapes, now in the hands of the US prosecutors, Morales admitted to lying in his testimony stating that his onetime prison cell-mate, Guandique, confessed to killing Levy. Gaundique will then have a deportation hearing, and again, the likelihood is that he will be sent back to El Salvador, in custody, on an ICE flight.
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“The failure of authorities to bring formal closure to this tragedy after 15 years is very disappointing but in no way alters the fact that Mr. Condit was long ago completely exonerated by authorities in connection with Ms. Levy’s death”, read the statement.
