The ex-girlfriend of Ingmar Guandique took the witness stand Wednesday in D.C. Superior Court, recounting her relationship with the man charged with killing Chandra Levy in 2001.
Iris Portillo, who dated Guandique for several months in 2000 and 2001 and lived with him for a time in her mother's Northwest Washington apartment, said Guandique had punched her in the face during a dispute and that she had pushed him away in defense.
But Portillo, who is 4 ft. 11 in. tall and said she weighed about 100 pounds at the time, she said she was not responsible for the scratches she saw on his chest one day when he came over, late in their relationship, in what would have likely been the spring of 2001.
"He told me somebody had tried to rob him," Portillo said.
Under questioning by Assistant U.S. Attorney Fernando Campoamor, she said she withheld information about the scratches when she appeared before a grand jury in 2002 as part of the investigation into Levy's death.
"I did not believe he did this," she said.
A native of El Salvador, Portillo seemed to struggle to understand many of the questions put to her. She frequently asked for questions to be repeated. At times, she appeared to frustrate both the prosecution and the defense with her assertions that she did not remember something she had told the grand jury, even after being shown copies of her testimony.
After Campoamor read a lengthy passage of her testimony to her, she was, by that point, perplexed.
"You got me lost."
Portillo is scheduled to resume her testimony Thursday.
-- Henri E. Cauvin
Loading...
Comments