Gary Condit

Gary Condit
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from California's 18th district
In office January 3, 1993 – January 3, 2003
Preceded by	Richard H. Lehman
Succeeded by	Dennis Cardoza
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from California's 15th district
In office September 12, 1989 – January 3, 1993
Preceded by	Tony Coelho
Succeeded by	Norman Y. Mineta
Personal details
Born	Gary Adrian Condit (1948-04-21) April 21, 1948 Salina, Oklahoma, U.S.
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	Carolyn Berry
Children	Cadee & Chadwick
Alma mater	Modesto Junior College (A.A) University of Southern California (B.B.A)
Profession	Businessman

Gary Adrian Condit (born April 21, 1948) is a former politician and member of the Democratic Party who served in the House of Representatives from 1989 to 2003. Condit holds a B.B.A from the USC Marshall School of Business. Condit originally represented California's 15th congressional district, and then later California's 18th congressional district after redistricting following the 1990 census.

Condit gained significant national attention for an extramarital affair with intern Chandra Levy, which was exposed after Levy's disappearance in May 2001. Condit was not candid and forthcoming with investigators about his relationship with Levy, bringing him considerable negative attention and speculation that he was somehow involved in her murder. Condit lost the 2002 Democratic primary based in large part on negative publicity from the scandal. Prosecutors later convicted an illegal immigrant and Mara Salvatrucha member, Ingmar Guandique, who had committed other assaults with similar characteristics. However, lacking physical evidence, the verdict was overturned and charges subsequently dropped by Washington D.C. prosecutors after the testimony of a jailhouse informant was determined to be unreliable.

Political career

Condit began his career on the city council of Ceres, California; near Modesto, from 1972 to 1976—the last two years as mayor. He served on the Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors from 1976 to 1982, and was elected to the California State Assembly in 1982.

California State Assembly

In 1988, Condit was a member of the "Gang of Five" with Charles M. Calderon of Whittier, Gerald R. Eaves of Rialto, Rusty Areias of Los Banos and Steve Peace of Chula Vista.^[1] 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.^[2]

U.S. House of Representatives

Condit was elected to Congress in 1989 in a special election, after House Democratic Whip Tony Coelho resigned. He was elected to a full term in 1990, and reelected five more times without serious difficulty. The Republicans didn't even put up a candidate in 1992 and 1998. 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 attacks. Like most Democrats from the Central Valley, Condit was somewhat more conservative than other Democrats from California. A Blue Dog Democrat, Condit voted against President Bill Clinton more frequently than all Congressional Democrats.^[3]

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 scandal involving a relationship with intern Chandra Levy.^[4] Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, interest in the Levy case declined.^[5] Condit kept his seat on the Intelligence Committee, retained his security clearance, and was one of a small number of members of Congress who were cleared to see the most sensitive information on the 9/11 attacks.

On December 7, 2001, Condit announced he would run for re-election. He lost the Democratic 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.^[6] Condit's most notable vote in his last months in office was the resolution to expel Congressman James Traficant after his conviction on corruption charges. In the 420–1 vote on July 24, 2002, Condit was the sole "nay".^[7]

Levy scandal

Reporters with Condit, August 17, 2001

In 2001, Condit became the subject of international news coverage after the disappearance of Chandra Levy, a young woman working as a Washington, D.C. intern, originally from Condit's district. Police questioned Condit two times, and both times he denied having an affair with her; however, Levy's aunt eventually went public with conversations she had with her about their relationship. Police questioned Condit a third time, and he confessed to the relationship.^[8][9] 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 her disappearance. Public interest was high, and Condit's reputation suffered from the contrast between his "pro-family" politics, 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, and 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.^[8] This followed news reports that Condit had an affair with a flight attendant.^[10] Because of the Levy scandal, Condit was portrayed on an episode of South Park where he was considered responsible for the disappearance of Chandra Levy.

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 defamed him; the comments indicated that Condit ordered the death of Levy in 2001. Condit's attorney said the libel 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. Condit's attorney 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.^[11] 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.^[12]

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.'"^[13] 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 malice.

In March 2009, a warrant was issued for the arrest of Ingmar Guandique, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador who had already been convicted and imprisoned for two other attacks on women in Rock Creek Park. He was subsequently indicted for Levy's murder.^[14][15] On November 22, 2010, Guandique was found guilty of first-degree murder,^[16] and was sentenced in February 2011 to 60 years in prison.^[17] Condit's lawyer Bert Fields said, "It's a complete vindication but that comes a little late. Who gives him his career back?"^[18]

However, on June 4, 2015, D.C. Superior Court Judge Gerald Fisher granted a motion for the retrial of Guandique after it was revealed that the sole witness against him, a jailhouse snitch named Armando Morales, had lied about prior jailhouse testimony.^[19] Prosecutors dropped all charges against Guandique on July 28, 2016 after an associate of Morales came forward with secret recordings in which he admitted to falsifying testimony about the murder of Chandra Levy.^[20][21] The murder of Chandra Levy therefore remains unsolved.

Business career

After his departure from office, Condit moved to Arizona where he operated two Baskin-Robbins ice cream stores with his wife and son.^[22] When the franchise failed, Condit was ordered to pay the company $98,000 in a breach of contract proceeding.^[23][24] He is now serving as president of the Phoenix Institute of Desert Agriculture.^[25]

Family

Condit was born in Salina, Oklahoma, the son of Velma Jean (Tidwell) and Adrian Burl Condit, a minister.^[26][27]

In 2012, Condit's son, Chad, announced his intention to run for the House of Representatives as an independent in California's redrawn 10th congressional district. He lost in the top-two election against incumbent Jeff Denham and Democratic challenger Jose Hernandez.^[28] Condit has a daughter, Cadee, who is married to Assembly member Adam Gray, formerly a Condit aide.^[29]

See also

• List of federal political sex scandals in the United States

Notes

External links

• Biography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Condit's Profile on CNN