Chandra Levy's Convicted Killer to Get New Trial

A man convicted of killing Washington intern Chandra Levy is expected to get a new trial after government attorneys today said the "interests of justice" would best be served by one. After more than a year of sporadic hearings and legal wrangling, government attorneys withdrew their opposition to a new trial for Ingmar Guandique. In a four-page motion, they told a judge they were preparing to re-try him. Guandique's attorneys had previously asked a judge to grant him a new trial because they said a key witness in the case, Guandique's one-time cellmate, gave false or misleading testimony during his 2010 trial. Guandique's attorneys said prosecutors knew or should have known the testimony was problematic and investigated further.

"The government continues to believe the jury's verdict was correct," prosecutors wrote in their motion, adding that they didn't believe anything else learned during a post-trial investigation "casts doubt on the defendant's guilt." However, prosecutors said that the "passage of time and the unique circumstances of this case" had made opposing a new trial more difficult. Levy's 2001 disappearance created a national sensation after the 24-year-old Modesto, California, native was romantically linked with then-Rep. Gary Condit, a California Democrat who was ultimately ruled out as a suspect. (More Chandra Levy stories.)