WASHINGTON — A judge on Monday reluctantly postponed until
next October the trial of the man who’s accused of killing former intern
Chandra Levy in May 2001.
With prosecutors now planning a revised indictment of
suspect Ingmar Guandique, Superior Court Judge Gerald I. Fisher agreed to delay
the trial, which had been scheduled to begin in January. Guandique will remain
in jail pending the start of the trial Oct. 4.
“Obviously, we would prefer an earlier trial
date,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Fernando Campoamor said Monday, “but
we think that’s the first one that realistically can work.”
An illegal immigrant from El Salvador, Guandique is accused
of murdering Levy in Washington’s Rock Creek Park. Levy had just completed
graduate school and a Bureau of Prisons internship and was preparing to return
to California.
The original arraignment in May charged Guandique with
first-degree murder, attempted sexual assault and kidnapping. On Monday,
Campoamor revealed that prosecutors intend to file a superseding indictment by
mid-December. He declined to specify how the new indictment would differ from
the first one.
Since the initial charges were lodged, though, prosecutors
have alleged publicly that Guandique and his alleged gang associates have
threatened potential witnesses. The alleged threats have included
communications from Guandique directly and from members of the feared
Salvadoran gang Mara Salvatrucha, prosecutors said.
“(One) witness received a letter from MS-13, reminding
him that if he were to testify at the trial, they knew where his family
is,” Campoamor said at a court hearing last month.
Threatening a federal witness is a crime punishable by up to
10 years in prison, while transmitting threats via the mail can bring up to
five years in prison. Prosecutors didn’t indicate Monday that the new
indictment would include witness-tampering charges, but Campoamor acknowledged
that the intention to file a new indictment contributed to prosecutors’
willingness to postpone the trial date.
Guandique’s defense attorneys previously had sought without
success to push back the initial Jan. 27 trial date, set by a previous judge.
Now, though, defense attorneys and prosecutors alike have agreed that a later
date is required. Fisher pressed the attorneys about the possibility of a
shorter delay, but attorneys couldn’t find an earlier date on which everyone
was available for trial.
“We were trying to see if a date in September could
work,” Campoamor told the judge, but that effort proved futile.
Guandique is completing a 10-year sentence for attacking two
other women in Rock Creek Park. On Monday, attorneys agreed that if his
sentence runs out before his new trial starts — a possibility that neither side
was certain of — he will remain in jail without the possibility of bail.
The first judge on the Guandique case, Geoffrey Alprin,
retired recently and handed over the case to Fisher.
A graduate of the College of William and Mary and the
Catholic University of America’s law school, Fisher was appointed to the
Superior Court of the District of Columbia bench in 2001 by President Bill
Clinton.
Via McClatchy-Tribune News Service.
