The Condit Case Revisited: MSM Smeared Congressman—Ignored Illegal Alien Suspect

Back in the summer of 2001, then-U.S. Representative Gary Condit was tried and convicted of the murder of Washington, D.C. intern Chandra Levy.

In the MainStream Media [MSM], that is.

Condit was never actually charged, let alone convicted. But he did lose the next primary—a blow to immigration reform patriots. Condit was a moderate Democrat who voted in opposition to President Bill Clinton more often than not and favored curbing illegal immigration while supporting interior enforcement and border control.

Curiously, three months ago the Condit case resurfaced because one of the most irresponsible MSM outlets, the Washington Post , published a series dedicated to what it described as "an in-depth reconstruction of the case that would reexamine all avenues of the investigation." [Who Killed Chandra Levy? by Sari Horwitz, Scott Higham and Sylvia Moreno, Washington Post,, July13-27, 2008]

This is to laugh out loud. It was the Post that kicked the Condit feeding frenzy into high gear by publishing a completely fictitious account from a Pentecostal minister in Condit's hometown of Ceres, Calif. who claimed he had worked as a handyman for the Levy family. The anonymous minister said his teenage daughter once dated the congressman, but she was afraid to talk to the FBI and had gone into hiding.

One week later the minister recanted. [Media Frenzy, by Sari Horwitz, Scott Higham, and Sylvia Moreno, Washington Post, July 22, 2008]]

But by then and taking their leads from the Post, the race was on to see which news outlet could fabricate the biggest pack of lies in the least amount of time: Levy was pregnant, Condit was a Hells Angel addicted to sadomasochistic sex who attended orgies at Middle East embassies to have sex with prostitutes, Condit kidnapped Levy, put her body in an airplane and dumped it over the Atlantic Ocean, etc. (Dominick Dunne provided this last bit of nonsense to Larry King on CNN.)

If only the Post had demonstrated such a commitment to high quality journalism in 2001 as it purports to today a California Congressman might still be voting in support of our position on many patriotic immigration reform issues—and an illegal alien might be facing trial for first degree murder.

Looking back at Condit-Levy, most aspects of the case that were perfectly obvious to any rational human being are just now beginning to see the light of day at the Post.

Levy's body wasn't discovered until a year after Condit's lynching. Normally, murder can't be proven without a dead body

But the MSM focused all of its attention on Condit, making him its only suspect and figuratively abusing him in print and over the airwaves every day.

Public interest in the Levy case reached its peak in mid-July when, according to a CNN/USA Today poll, 63 percent of Americans were following the story ""closely."

The remaining 37 percent tracked the story, if not "closely," then at least with great awareness until 9/11 knocked it off the front page.

And how could they not? Television satellite trucks camped outside Condit's apartment building. Pedestrians could barely squeeze by.

In the halls of Congress, reporters badgered him. The summertime scandal attracted worldwide attention and the lurid (and often fabricated) details were sent around the world, from the Daily Mail in London to the Mercury in Hobart, Australia, to the Xinhua News Agency in China.

As it turned out, the MSM was wrong about every charge it made. Condit was innocent. And completely overlooked, at the expense of Condit's reputation was the illegal alien angle. A Salvadoran illegal alien, Ingmar Guandique, is still the most likely suspect.

At the exact time of Levy's disappearance, uandique, was under arrest for assaulting two women in Rock Creek Park where Levy's body was eventually discovered. [Salvadorean Suspect - But Chandra's Killing Unlikely To Be Solved, by Sam Francis, VDARE.com, June 3, 2002]]

Michelle Malkin ran a Lexis-Nexis database search of 115 news items archived that mentioned Guandique in connection with the Levy case. But not a single story referred to his status as a criminal illegal alien.

As police later learned ("later" because everyone was intent on proving Condit guilty) Guandique had a long history of violence against women.

The media frenzy put pressure on the police to solve the case quickly. And sadly for Condit, with the press already convinced that he was the killer, the police didn't follow any other leads.

Detectives didn't interview Guandique's other victims, didn't visit the crime scenes in Rock Creek Park, didn't assign Spanish-speaking detectives to talk to Guandique's friends and relatives and didn't look for his possessions to test them for forensic evidence. [A Jail House Informant, by Sari Horwitz, Scott Higham and Sylvia Moreno, Washington Post, July 18, 2008]

Yet, a full 386-days after Levy was first reported missing, Kim Rossmo, geographical crime profiler and director of research for the Police Foundation in Washington, noted that Guandique lived on the outskirts of Rock Creek Park.

And, similarly to the details surrounding the Levy case, Guandique had attacked two women with a knife on isolated trails that traversed steep inclines. Rossmo knew that such serial attacks were rare in the park. And they had abruptly stopped after Guandique's arrest.

To Rossmo, statistically, behaviorally and geographically, Guandique looked like their man.

Rossmo later told the Post: "This is not evidence, but both attacks were on women, and the geography and the time period match the attack on Chandra. When you consider the relatively low violent crime rate in Rock Creek Park, Guandique stands out like a neon sign." [A Walk in the Woods, by Sari Horwitz, Scott Higham and Sylvia Moreno, Washington Post, July 18, 2008]

In the end, every single allegation made against Condit was false. Condit had indeed had an affair with Levy, information he initially withheld but that was later confirmed by DNA evidence. But when asked repeatedly if he had anything to do with Levy's disappearance, her death or had any knowledge of her whereabouts, Condit always answered truthfully: "No."

Unflattering details about Levy's personal life were suppressed while positive facts supporting Condit were marginalized, if mentioned at all.

Back in his home district, bidding for his eighth Congressional term, the daily pounding Condit took in the press gave him no chance. In 2002, State assemblyman Dennis Cardoza challenged Condit in a Democratic Congressional primary and trounced him, 55 percent to 37 percent. In his previous elections, Condit normally carried his district with 65 percent of the vote.

Cardoza, running unopposed in 2008, is much weaker than Condit on immigration issues.

Here's an update on the central characters:

• All the original police investigators now agree that Condit had nothing to do with Levy's murder. According to former police chief Charles A. Ramsey, there is no evidence linking Condit to the crime. "I have not seen anything that would lead me to believe he had anything to do with her murder. There is no evidence that he had any knowledge of her murder. There's no physical evidence; there's no statement; there's nothing."

On the other hand, Ramsey views uandique as the leading suspect who would be on his "short list of people I would have a very long conversation with."

• Condit sued Dominic Dunne twice, once for slander and a second time for "revivifying" defamation of character. The parties settled the first case out of court. But a federal judge dismissed the defamation suit.

Condit's wife Carolyn, however, successfully sued the National Inquirer over falsehoods it published claiming that she had "verbally abused" Levy. In fact, Mrs. Condit had never spoken to her.  

• Officially, the Levy case is "unsolved." Guandique has never been charged with Levy's murder. After having been moved several times within the federal correctional system because of behavioral problems (including sending lewd sketches suggesting explicit sexual acts to a woman whose picture he saw in a newspaper), he is incarcerated just outside of the Mojave Desert. [Epilogue, by Sari Horwitz, Scott Higham and Sylvia Moreno, Washington Post, July 27, 2008]
   
• Condit moved to Arizona where he owned a two Baskin-Robbins ice cream franchises until his agreement with the company was revoked following a dispute over fees. He is involved in other unspecified businesses.

The winter 2008 issue of California Conversations published portions of Condit's six-hour interview, entitled Gary Condit: From All Angles. Calling himself the "most vilified person on the planet," Condit summarized his experiences with the media:

"I went through some emotional stress and depression over this. Who wouldn't? What the tabloids do is rape your reputation. They pay people money to tell stories, make up stories, and when you see the covers as you walk by the rack you're witnessing the rape of someone's reputation."

But Condit expressed no regrets. According to him, he spends his days traveling through America's back roads and enjoying his grandchildren. Condit's wife of more than forty years never lost faith in him.

Condit's media railroading is extraordinary. It remains the only story to date where journalists protected an illegal alien at the expense of a Congressman and his family—to say nothing of Chandra Levy's grieving parents.

Joe Guzzardi [email him] is a California native who recently fled the state because of over-immigration, over-population and a rapidly deteriorating quality of life. He has moved to Pittsburgh, PA where the air is clean and the growth rate stable. A long-time instructor in English at the Lodi Adult School, Guzzardi has been writing a weekly column since 1988. It currently appears in the Lodi News-Sentinel.