WASHINGTON – from www.nytimes.com — A Salvadoran immigrant was sentenced to 60 years in prison on Friday for the killing of Chandra Levy, a 24-year-old government intern whose relationship with Gary A. Condit, then a California congressman, made the murder case a national news media sensation.
Judge Gerald I. Fisher of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia chose not to impose the harshest sentence available, life in prison, on the immigrant, Ingmar Guandique, 29, who was convicted in November of murder for Ms. Levy’s death.
The judge said he believed that Mr. Guandique was dangerous to society, particularly to women, and sentenced him to 60 years in prison, double the minimum required.
“I think he is essentially a sexual predator,” Judge Fisher said. “The question is whether I conclude that he’s the worst of all the worst. I come close to that conclusion, but I don’t quite reach it.”
The case became one of the highest-profile unsolved murders in this city’s history, in part because it involved Mr. Condit, a Democrat representing California’s 18th Congressional District. Investigators later concluded that Mr. Condit, who was married at the time of Ms. Levy’s disappearance in May 2001, did not play any role in her murder, but the negative publicity ended his political career.
The case dragged on for years, and was eventually categorized as a cold case with no leads. But in 2009, investigators charged Mr. Guandique, who was serving time for attacks on other women in the same park that occurred around the time Ms. Levy disappeared.
