-Caveat Lector-
Private dicks search toss intern's apartment
Wednesday, June 27, 2001
By MICHAEL DOYLE
Scripps-McClatchy Western Service
Private investigators scoured the Washington apartment of missing intern
Chandra Levy on Tuesday, as the nationwide search proceeded on multiple
tracks.
While the private eyes started from scratch, police have been broadening
their own inquiries to include a wider circle of Rep. Gary Condit's
friends and acquaintances.
FBI agents working with Washington police, for instance, have already
interviewed a flight attendant who'd come to know Condit. The woman's
Seattle-based attorney, Jim Robinson, acknowledged in an interview with the
Sacramento Bee on Tuesday that the questioning has taken place, but
declined to offer other details.
My client is a private individual, and would like to remain a private
individual, Robinson said.
The FBI's questioning of Condit's flight attendant acquaintance, who had no
known connection to Levy, epitomized the apparently widening inquiry now
under way. Separately, Fox television news cited an anonymous police
source as claiming that police now also hope to interview Condit's wife
Carolyn.
Carolyn Condit lives most of the year in the small Stanislaus County town
of Ceres, but was staying in Washington with her husband the week of April
28 through May 3. Levy was last seen April 30.
According to Condit's attorney Joe Cotchett, Levy had tried four or five
times to phone Condit to say goodbye in the days before she disappeared.
Reached Tuesday night, Condit's chief of staff Mike Lynch said he had no
information to offer about the status and nature of the police inquiries.
In a statement issued last week, Condit pledged again to provide whatever
information I could to help police find Levy.
Washington police have repeatedly said they do not consider Condit a
suspect in the disappearance of Levy, whom the congressman described in a
written statement as a great person and a good friend.
Through his staff, Condit has denied having a romantic relationship with
the former Bureau of Prisons intern; he has repeatedly declined to answer
reporters' questions about the matter.
Condit has talked to police twice in person, the latest time for an hour on
Saturday, as part of what police say is an effort to better understand
Levy's lifestyle and state of mind.
He's not under investigation; he's not a suspect, Executive Assistant
Police Chief Terry Gainer reiterated Tuesday, adding that Condit was
sharing as much as he thought he could with us during the Saturday
interview.
Condit had his newly hired Washington attorney, Abbe Lowell, present during
the weekend interview with police. It is not clear how many other of the
100-plus individuals interviewed by police and FBI so far have likewise had
attorneys present during questioning.
The official police investigation into what is still called a critical
missing-persons case has been under way since Levy's worried father called
the weekend of May 5-6. A much more recent investigation is also gathering
steam, conducted by two former Washington homicide detectives working for
Levy's parents.
Private investigators Dwayne Stanton and Joseph McCann, hired by the Levys'
Washington attorney Billy Martin, made their second visit Tuesday to the
apartment complex Levy called home for eight months.
Accompanied by their own video camera operator, the investigators for the
first time got inside Levy's third-floor studio apartment.
The investigators videotaped the white walls, the gray carpet, the
floor-to-ceiling window overlooking 21st Street. They peered inside the
closet-turned-desk space, where Levy tapped out late-night e-mail messages
on her laptop computer, and they scanned the platform bed stuffed snugly in
an alcove.
And, the investigators checked out the door locks and eyehole that the
security-conscious Levy was known to use religiously. Safety was important
to Levy and to her parents, one of Levy's landlords said Tuesday, and this
priority became apparent from the first time Levy saw the apartment.
She really wanted (the apartment,) but she first wanted her parents to see
it, because they were concerned for her safety, recalled the landlord,
speaking on condition of anonymity.
The landlords now live in the San Francisco Bay Area, and once worked for
former North Coast congressman Doug Bosco. They had considerable fixing up
to do once the Washington police had finished with the apartment after
being called in to find Levy. The carpet had been yanked up; black
fingerprint dust was everywhere and a carpenter was needed to repair some
of the damages.
The whole place was upside down, one landlord said.
===
Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
FROM THE DESK OF:
*Michael Spitzer*[EMAIL PROTECTED]
The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
