Gary Condit

Gary Adrian Condit (born April 21, 1948) is a former American politician, a Democrat who served in the House of Representatives from 1989 to 2003. Condit represented California's 18th congressional district which includes much of the northern San Joaquin Valley (when he was first elected, this district was the 15th District; it became the 18th district after redistricting following the 1990 census).

Condit gained significant national attention for an extramarital affair with Chandra Levy, which was exposed after Levy's disappearance in May 2001.

Political career

In 1988, Democratic Assemblyman Condit was a member of the "Gang of Five," consisting of Condit, Charles M. Calderon of Whittier, Gerald R. Eaves of Rialto, Rusty Areias of Los Banos, and Steve Peace of Chula Vista, California. The group tried and failed to unseat Willie Brown, who was serving as Speaker of the Assembly of the California State Assembly at the time, by making a deal with assembly Republicans. Steve Peace co-wrote and produced the 1988 film Return of the Killer Tomatoes; Condit appeared as unbilled, unspeaking pizzeria patron during a fight sequence wearing a trucker cap who smashes a bottle on the head of a cowboy.

Condit was later elected to Congress in a 1989 special election, after House Democratic Whip Tony Coelho resigned. His most important committee assignment was as a senior member on the House Intelligence Committee in the months and years prior to the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C.

According to Salon, Condit voted against President Bill Clinton most frequently of all Congressional Democrats. In 1998, during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Condit publicly demanded that Clinton "come clean" on his relationship with the young woman; a video of this demand was aired almost daily during Condit's own sex scandal.

In May 2001, Condit became the subject of international news coverage after the May 1 disappearance of Chandra Levy, a young woman working as a Washington, D.C. intern originally from Condit's district. Police questioned him twice, and Condit denied having an affair with her; however, after Levy's aunt went public with conversations she had had with her missing niece about the adulterous liaison, police questioned him a third time, and Condit confessed to the relationship. When the affair began, Condit was 53 and Levy was 23.

While Condit was not named as an official suspect in the disappearance, Levy's family suspected that Condit was withholding important information about the intern's disappearance. Public interest was high, and Condit's reputation suffered from the contrast between his "pro-family" politics and adultery with a woman two years younger than his daughter, and his attempts to mislead the police regarding the nature of his relationship with her. In July, two months after Levy vanished, Condit agreed to let investigators search his apartment, but hours before the search, police said he was spotted throwing out a gift box he had received from another woman in a dumpster in one of Washington's Virginia suburbs. Suspicion deepened when Condit tried to avoid answering direct questions during a televised interview with news anchor Connie Chung on August 23. This followed news reports that Condit had an affair with flight attendant Anne Marie Smith.

Condit mostly disappeared from the news after the September 11, 2001 attacks. Condit kept his seat on the Intelligence Committee, retained his security clearance, and was one of small number of members of Congress who were cleared to see the most sensitive information on the 9/11 attacks. On December 7, 2001, he announced he would run for re-election. He lost the primary election in March 2002 to his former aide, then-Assemblyman Dennis Cardoza, and left Congress at the end of his term in January 2003. It was the first election Condit ever lost. Condit's most notable vote in his last months in office was the House of Representatives resolution to expel Congressman James Traficant after his conviction on corruption charges. In the 420-1 vote on July 24, 2002, Gary Condit was the sole "nay".

Post-politics

After his departure from office, Condit was residing in Arizona and operating two ice cream store franchises with a lack of success. He was a civil defendant for costs due to the franchise failures and is defending a civil suit for fees and costs

Levy's remains did not turn up during the extensive search that followed her disappearance, but were discovered by accident on May 22, 2002, by a man hunting for turtles with his dog in a secluded area of Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C. That month, a medical examiner officially declared that Levy's death was the result of homicide. Condit initiated a lawsuit against Vanity Fair writer Dominick Dunne in a New York federal court in late 2002 for $11 million, claiming that statements made by Dunne about Condit libeled him. The comments indicated that Condit ordered the death of missing Modesto intern Chandra Levy in 2001. Condit's attorney said the defamation lawsuit was based on comments Dunne repeated on national radio and television programs in December 2001 where he suggested Condit frequented Middle Eastern embassies for sexual activity with prostitutes, and during those times, he made it clear that he wanted someone to get rid of Levy. Wood said that Dunne's comments "conveyed that Gary Condit was involved in her kidnapping and in her murder, that friends of Gary Condit had her kidnapped, put in an airplane and dropped in the Atlantic Ocean." Dunne paid an undisclosed amount to settle that lawsuit in March 2005.Dunne said he had been "completely hoodwinked" by an unreliable informant. Subsequently Condit sued Dunne again, charging him with "revivifying" the slander in an appearance on Larry King Live in November 2005. In July 2008 a federal judge dismissed the second lawsuit filed against Dunne.

In July 2006, Condit sued the Sonoran News, a free weekly circular, for defamation of character, after the publication wrote "that Condit was the 'main focus in the Chandra Levy case in 2001, after lying to investigators about his affair with Levy.'" The case was dismissed in July 2007 when the judge ruled that Condit had not proved the statement was false, or that the paper had published it with actual malice.

In March 2009, police issued a warrant for the arrest of Ingmar Guandique for the murder of Chandra Levy. Guandique is a prison inmate who had confessed to two other attacks on women in Rock Creek Park. He was subsequently indicted for Levy's murder. Jury selection in Guandique's trial began on October 18, 2010

Guandique was found guilty of Murder on 11-22-2010.

(source:wikipedia)

Guilty verdict in Chandra Levy murder case

WASHINGTON — A jury on Monday found an El Salvadoran immigrant guilty of murdering Washington intern Chandra Levy.

Jurors deliberated four days before finding Ingmar Guandique, 29, guilty in the 2001 disappearance and killing of Levy.

Levy's story made national headlines when she was romantically linked with Gary Condit, then a Democrat representing parts of California in Congress. Condit was initially the main suspect but police no longer believe he was involved.

In closing arguments last week, Guandique's attorney said it was the former lawmaker — and not her client — who acted "like a guilty man" in the months after Levy went missing.

Prosecutors maintained that Levy's killing fits the pattern of other crimes committed by Guandique in 2001.The same "tunnel vision" that caused police to overzealously pursue Condit as a suspect in Levy's disappearance has now been unfairly trained on the man on trial for her murder, defense lawyers argued.

Still, the attorneys also used closing arguments to question Condit's behavior since Levy's disappearance. Ultimately, they argued, the government's case against a Salvadoran immigrant rested solely on lies by a prison inmate seeking to curry favor with the government.

Levy's disappearance became a national sensation when she was romantically linked to Condit, who testified earlier this month that he had nothing to do with the disappearance or killing.

Her remains were found in Washington's Rock Creek Park roughly a year after she went missing. She was 24.

Public defender Santha Sonenberg reminded the jury last week how fervently police pursued Condit.

"Back in 2001 the tunnel vision in this case was with regard to Mr. Condit. By 2008, 2009, the tunnel vision had changed and it focused on our client," Sonenberg said.

Yet Sonenberg also focused much of her closing arguments on Condit. She pointed a finger in Condit's direction, though she never explicitly accused him of involvement."He does things like a guilty man," Sonenberg said of Condit's behavior in the months after Levy's May 2001 disappearance.

Sonenberg noted that Condit took the Fifth Amendment in grand jury testimony in 2002, which is allowed only when a witness believes he will incriminate himself by answering. Condit, in trial testimony, said he took the Fifth because he was angry at prosecutors who he believed were out to get him. Sonenberg also said that Condit repeatedly refused to answer whether he had an affair with Levy, even when asked directly during trial. Condit said during the trial that he was entitled to some privacy.

The defense attorney said there was powerful evidence of Guandique's innocence, including DNA from an unknown male found on Levy's tights. The DNA matches neither Guandique nor Condit, and Guandique's DNA was never found on anything connected to Levy.

Prosecutors argued that the DNA likely came from contamination by someone who handled Levy's tights as evidence. Sonenberg pointed out that the government could have checked the DNA against anybody who handled the tights, but apparently failed to do so.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Haines, meanwhile, acknowledged that the case against Guandique lacked DNA evidence or eyewitnesses. But she asked jurors to use their common sense and to believe the testimony of a prison inmate who says Guandique confided in him that he killed Levy."Justice is what needs to happen for this young girl," Haines said, holding up a smiling photo of Levy to the jury. "She's been waiting nine years for justice."

Haines said Levy's death fits a pattern of two other attacks committed by Guandique on female joggers in Rock Creek park in May and July of 2001. Guandique was convicted in those assaults and is serving a 10-year sentence.

And she said the testimony of Guandique's former cellmate, Armando Morales, is particularly compelling. Morales testified that Guandique was scared of being labeled a rapist by other inmates, and admitted killing Levy but denied raping her.

Haines said Morales' testimony included details that prove the confession was not fabricated. Morales said that Guandique told him he attacked Levy from behind, the same method that was used against the other two women assaulted by Guandique. Guandique also admitted to Morales that he had attacked other women who had fought him off, which fits the pattern of his other two attacks in Rock Creek Park.

Defense lawyers argue that Morales concocted the confession story to curry favor with prosecutors.

(source:msnbc.msn.com)