-Caveat Lector-
August 23, 2001
Police keep quiet on Levy investigation
By Frank J. Murray
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Still missing along with Chandra Levy is any detailed explanation of what
D.C. police have done to find her during the past three-and-a-half months.
Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey turned away basic queries from The
Washington Times about how his department pursues such a missing-person
investigation, which in the Levy case appears to have gone nowhere as leads
dried up.
Despite earlier assurances through his spokesman that he would grant an
interview for this article, Chief Ramsey and the spokesman refused for more
than two weeks to answer any of more than 40 questions submitted by The
Times about the sequence and scope of the Metropolitan Police Department's
investigation.
Rep. Gary A. Condit, California Democrat, is scheduled to break his long
public silence on his relationship with Miss Levy in a half-hour interview
today with Connie Chung of ABC News to be broadcast at 10 p.m. on
"PrimeTime Live." Detectives and FBI agents will watch the broadcast for
inconsistencies with Mr. Condit's four interviews with investigators.
The sensational, nationally followed case includes enough missed
investigative opportunities that the FBI sent agents assisting police "back
to square one." Their concern: By focusing so intensively on Miss Levy's
affair with Mr. Condit, 53, police may not have explored other avenues in
an adequate or timely way.
FBI agents decided to revisit Miss Levy's family, friends and
acquaintances, co-workers at the U.S. Bureau of Prisons where she interned
until April 23, and other frequenters of the Washington Sports Clubs outlet
where she last was seen April 30.
"We're not the sex police," Chief Ramsey snapped in one of his more pointed
replies to inquiries about the adulterous affair with the 24-year-old Miss
Levy that Mr. Condit belatedly acknowledged to investigators July 6 in the
third of four police interviews.
The most visible and extensive search by police came at an odd time -- 11
weeks after the former federal intern left her apartment near Dupont Circle
and did not return. D.C. police made certain news media knew a full day in
advance that 50 police recruits would scour places where a body might be
hidden in the area of the Klingle Mansion in Rock Creek Park.
The much-televised exercise reportedly was fruitless. The value of that
search is not clear amid questions about why police staged it so long after
investigators learned from examining Miss Levy's personal computer that she
showed an interest May 1 in going there.
If investigators staking out the park thought someone with knowledge of
Miss Levy's disappearance might show up out of curiosity, Chief Ramsey
isn't saying.
Such discordant notes -- delays in routine police procedure, failure to
publicize all available details of Miss Levy's physical appearance and
Chief Ramsey's public aversion to the sexual elements -- distinguish the
handling of one of the most sensitive investigations that any police
department could imagine.
"We're investigating a missing person while there are a whole bunch of
people out here just trying to investigate a sex scandal," Chief Ramsey
said in another attack on the news media culled from his many broadcast
appearances. "I don't care about that."
Chief Ramsey and his deputy, Executive Assistant Chief Terrance W. Gainer,
muzzled the only two detectives assigned full time to the Levy case as part
of a strategy -- in Chief Gainer's words -- to keep reporters "at bay."
Even as they silenced Detectives Ralph Durant and Lawrence Kennedy, the two
top police officials made frequent appearances on television and radio.
They sometimes disagreed but generally avoided responsive answers by saying
police simply were searching for a missing person and had no suspects
because there was no evidence of a crime.
"Maybe we jog someone's memory or change their heart and they give us
information," Chief Gainer said at one point, declining to use as an excuse
the fact that police actually can do little in such a case.
"The good news is that there still is information the press hasn't gotten a
hold of, that hasn't leaked out yet," Chief Ramsey boasted Aug. 7 to a
radio reporter, revealing how the department closely guards what he calls
"bum information" that when publicized later can help investigators filter
out useless tips.
Avoiding the question
Investigators first questioned Mr. Condit on May 9, four days after Miss
Levy's mother, Susan, called from the family home in Modesto, Calif., to
report her daughter missing. In the months since, Chief Ramsey has blamed
Mr. Condit for the slow start of the investigation because he held out on
the nature of his relationship with the young woman from his congressional
district.
One person familiar with that first interview said Mr. Condit answered most
questions about Miss Levy, "but he found a way to avoid answering one
question" -- whether the two had been intimate.
Police had that basic information from Miss Levy's parents before
investigators questioned the congressman, a source close to the family told
The Times. But Chief Ramsey has insisted that details from Mr. Condit were
pertinent. He declines to explain how the police search was impeded as he
now charges it was -- by Mr. Condit's reticence about the five-month
affair.
"It would have been very helpful had we known that earlier on," Chief
Ramsey said in an Aug. 7 interview on WTOP radio.
The principal newspapers in Mr. Condit's district, the Modesto Bee and the
Fresno Bee, cited this assertion Aug. 12 in editorials calling for his
resignation and, failing that, his defeat at the polls in 2002.
In an interview Friday with The Times, his Washington lawyer, Abbe Lowell,
said Mr. Condit initially answered all relevant questions from police. He
implied that any reply about an intimate relationship would have given
investigators no more information than was supplied earlier by Miss Levy's
mother.
"Congressman Condit tried to balance the need to cooperate with police
while holding onto the privacy of his family and private life," Mr. Lowell
said.
"He didn't lie and answered questions about every issue of significance
about the last time he saw her, the last time they spoke, her mood, whether
they had disagreements, whether she was depressed, whether they went to
specific restaurants, whether they traveled out of town, and where the
police might look for Chandra Levy," Mr. Lowell said of Mr. Condit's first
interview with police at his apartment in Adams Morgan.
She had no key
The Times has learned from official sources and others with opposing
interests in the case that police now believe Miss Levy regularly visited
that apartment two or three times a week, solely for sex, and dined out
with Mr. Condit just once -- meeting him at the Tryst coffeehouse and
restaurant on 18th Street NW in Adams Morgan.
Family members told investigators Miss Levy was in love with the married
congressman and expected a long-term relationship.
Police also are said to no longer credit a report by Miss Levy's aunt,
Linda Zamsky, that Mr. Condit told Miss Levy not to carry identification
when she was with him.
One source familiar with the probe said police believe Miss Levy made a
practice of visiting Mr. Condit's apartment straight from her job or night
school, bringing her gym bag, backpack and purse. The source said Mr.
Condit told police she never was in his apartment alone and was admitted
each time through a security system.
"Condit told them she did not have a key to his apartment," the source
said.
The Levy family has moved from a positive view of D.C. police to one
described as neutral by spokeswoman Lorraine Volz, who last week said Miss
Levy's parents haven't been critical and don't intend to change that
stance.
Initial delays in the time-sensitive investigation appear to have been
based on a common practice among police agencies of not immediately
pursuing competent adults who go missing, absent signs of foul play.
In her May 5 call reporting her daughter missing to D.C. police, Mrs. Levy
disclosed the family knew of the affair with Mr. Condit, a family source
said. Mrs. Levy and her husband, Dr. Robert Levy, confronted Mr. Condit by
telephone that night and again the next day, when he denied an affair.
"The Levys were somewhat brushed off by the police. They didn't get very
far at first," said a source with access to police and FBI investigators.
The source said the next step apparently was taken by Michael Dayton, Mr.
Condit's top aide in Washington.
"It was the congressman's staff that finally got the police interested,
when a member of his staff called police on Monday, May 7, and said a
constituent was missing. He called both the D.C. police and the FBI," the
source said.
That delay foreclosed the prospect of reviewing a videotape that might have
shown visitors to Miss Levy's apartment about the time of her
disappearance. The tape at the apartment house is re-recorded every week.
Officers who entered Miss Levy's apartment found a laptop computer, packed
luggage and her wallet holding credit cards, cash and identification. They
found no indication she bought travel tickets despite plans to attend a
commencement ceremony in Los Angeles on May 11.
Chief 'overscheduled'
In preparing this article, The Times asked to speak with an officer or
official who could discuss the procedures and timetable of the Levy
investigation, not solely Chief Ramsey.
But his spokesman, Sgt. Joe Gentile, said only the chief could take such
questions, which he hand-delivered in writing after The Times submitted
them Aug. 9. On several occasions over more than two weeks, Sgt. Gentile
confirmed that the chief had agreed to speak to a reporter.
When the chief did not respond, Sgt. Gentile said his boss was
overscheduled.
Questions from The Times that neither Chief Ramsey nor his deputies would
answer include the possible effect of the department's having abolished a
missing persons squad when it decentralized detective bureaus during the
past five years.
The chief also would not say whether Detectives Durant and Kennedy are
among detectives who, as he testified in January before the D.C. Council,
were promoted without passing merit exams. Nor would the department
describe their qualifications to lead such an investigation.
Chief Ramsey said in January that all homicide investigations must "follow
established protocols," but he would not reply when The Times asked whether
similar written guidelines or general orders apply to missing-persons cases
that could develop into homicide cases.
When Chief Ramsey appeared before the council's Judiciary Committee in
defense of decentralizing detective functions, he said police chiefs in New
York, Los Angeles and Chicago agreed that detectives should be moved closer
to neighborhoods.
Unlike the District, however, each of those cities retains a centralized
missing-persons unit. Here, detectives are divided among seven districts
rather than being based in headquarters units.
Missing personal details
The skimpiness of the official description of Miss Levy on the department's
Web site puzzles those following the case.
The full description on the police notice: "Ms. Levy is described as a
white female with hazel eyes and dark brown hair, 5'4" in height, weighing
approximately 108 pounds."
Among other identifying characteristics that still go unmentioned: the
small rose tattooed above her right ankle, two or three piercings in each
ear, a description of the clothing she wore when last seen, descriptions of
the diamond ring and key ring she is thought to have taken when she left
her apartment, the kinds of places she frequented.
Such details weren't available when the notice initially was posted May 10,
Sgt. Gentile said.
"Originally when we had the description, the information about the tattoo
was not provided to us. When officers got it, they did not update or alter
the informational sheet day by day," he said.
Early on, police told reporters they were hampered by Justice Department
rules about approaching a member of Congress in any investigation. But a
well-placed federal official said those rules never applied to D.C. police
and simply require a U.S. attorney to inform higher-ups when an
investigation focuses on a member of Congress.
Chief Ramsey appeared to be guessing July 5 when he said that suicide no
longer seemed likely because a body would have been found.
"You can't kill yourself and bury yourself," the chief said two months to
the day after Susan Levy reported her daughter missing. The remaining
options, he said, were that Miss Levy left voluntarily or was murdered.
Chief Ramsey consistently pooh-poohs questions about a possible serial
killer or links to the deaths or disappearances of at least three other
women.
One case he has not mentioned is that of Alison Thresher, 45, a copy editor
on the national desk of The Washington Post who vanished almost exactly one
year before Miss Levy. Mrs. Thresher's rust-colored 1997 Volvo station
wagon was abandoned near Lock 5 on the C&O Canal at Broad Street and Ridge
Road, a few blocks over the D.C. line in Maryland.
Within hours of Mrs. Thresher's disappearance, the Montgomery County Police
Department referred the case to its major-crimes division, Capt. Barney
Forsyth said.
"Sometimes you get that suspicion. There's just something hinky about the
case," Capt. Forsyth said, acknowledging the quick start turned out to be
of little help as investigators failed to find a trace of Mrs. Thresher.
In February, a month after relatives asked a court to declare her legally
dead, Montgomery investigators reclassified the file as a homicide.
One among thousands
Other analysts do not agree that the only three options in the Levy case
are murder, suicide or runaway. That omits amnesia or an unidentifiable
"Jane Doe" in a hospital or morgue somewhere.
Amnesia was the underlying factor in other long disappearances, said Ivana
Divona, a founder of the Missing Children Help Center in Tampa.
"It wouldn't be shocking to any one of us if she were in a hospital
someplace, unable to remember anything," Mrs. Divona said in an interview.
"If we can't resolve this case with all the publicity we're all paying
attention -- what hope do the rest of the people have for finding their
missing children?"
Statistics from the FBI's National Crime Information Center illustrate how
daunting the problem of missing persons can be and why the attention to
Chandra Levy is so unusual. As of July 1, when interest in the case was at
a peak, she was one of 54,765 girls and women listed as missing in the
center's "hot files."
Chief Ramsey sharply denies that Mr. Condit received any kid-glove
treatment, an issue that emerged when the congressman submitted the results
of a private polygraph test after investigators sought to have him examined
by their own specialist.
Asked to compare Mr. Condit's cooperation with that of other members of
Congress, the chief smiled.
"Fortunately," he said, "I have not had a lot of experience in
investigating members of Congress, and I hope I never have it again."
================================================================
Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
FROM THE DESK OF:
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The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
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