www.justiceforchandra.com

[blondie]

There is an article on Condit today 8-25-06. Great article

http://www.modbee.com/local/v-dp_morning/story/12498935p-13215088c.html

[gozgals]

Thanks for the great article blondie. I will see if I can print it out. Hope this helps you out.

Good day to you and all.

http://www.modbee.com/local/v-dp_morning/story/12498935p-13215088c.html

Condit: Plaintiff and defendant (fair use)
By MICHAEL DOYLE
WASHINGTON BUREAU
July 25, 2006

While Gary Condit sues a small Arizona newspaper he claims hurt his reputation, Baskin-Robbins last week got the OK to serve the former congressman with a federal lawsuit alleging he and his family breached their contract to run two stores in Glendale, Ariz.

WASHINGTON — Former Rep. Gary Condit is playing both offense and defense in the courts.

On offense, Condit is fighting a Phoenix-area newspaper he says defamed him. On defense, Baskin-Robbins is challenging him over his ice cream business.

Taken together, several ongoing lawsuits reveal Condit's struggle to find his place since his involuntary departure from Congress in January 2003 and relocation from Ceres to Arizona.

"I do believe that people are leery of being involved with me in a traditional way," Condit acknowledged in a deposition taken as part of a previous lawsuit.

This month, Condit sued a small Arizona paper he says hurt his reputation by its characterization of his handling of Chandra Levy's disappearance. A one-time Bureau of Prisons intern who was raised in Modesto, Levy disappeared in 2001. Her skeletal remains were found in Washington's Rock Creek Park a year later. Her murder has not been solved.

The weekly, free-circulation Sonoran News stated in a 2005 article that Condit was the "main focus in the Chandra Levy case in 2001, after lying to investigators about his affair with Levy."

In fact, police have neither identified any suspect in Levy's disappearance noraccused Condit of lying during the investigation.

"(The paper) intentionally published the defamatory article about (Condit) in a calculated effort to increase sales and increase corporate profits by falsely sensationalizing their tabloid coverage of the Chandra Levy case," the lawsuit contends.

Condit's Florida-based attorneys filed the lawsuit in Maricopa County, where he lives andwhere the 30,000-circulation Sonoran News serves residents of the Cave Creek community north of Phoenix.

The breezily written article focused mostly on Condit's brother, Darrell, an ex-con who was trying to organize a local fireworks event.

Gary Condit and his wife, Carolyn, have filed multiple defamation lawsuits over press coverage of the Levy case. The cases have been settled privately. Most recently, last year, Gary Condit settled a case against author Dominick Dunne hours before the former congressman was scheduled to be deposed about his sex life.

"Everybody knows they have no intention of bringing this to trial," Sonoran News attorney Dan Barr said Monday. "Just imagine what his jury appeal would be."

Phoenix-based Barr predicted Condit's lawsuit will fail because he is a public figure and must show that the Sonoran News either knew its statements were false or published them with reckless disregard for whether they were true.

But even as Condit challenges the newspaper, other court records show he is facing claims that he mishandled two ice cream shops near Phoenix.

Late last week, contending that Condit and his family members "have been evading service of process," Baskin-Robbins secured a federal judge's order that U.S. deputy marshals serve legal papers on Condit, his wife and two children.

The legal papers are part of a federal lawsuit that Baskin-Robbins filed in Phoenix. The company claims Condit, Carolyn and their children,ChadandCadee, breached their contract to run two ice cream stores in Glendale, Ariz.

The Condits opened the franchises in February 2005.

"It's a family-run shop," Chad Condit told CNN's Larry King in February 2005, adding that "Dad is in the ice cream business with us, and he spends part of his time in California."

But by February 2006, BaskinRobbins claims, the Condits had defaulted on their financial reporting and payment obligations. The company terminated the two franchise contracts in March, claiming the Condits owe at least $14,221.29. The company also claimed the Condits have kept operating the store under the Baskin-Robbins name even after losing the franchise.

"(The Condits) have breached the franchise agreements by failing to report gross sales, and to pay royalty fees and advertising fees, late fees, interest and collection costs," BaskinRobbins claims.

The Condits could not be reached through the store Monday.

The Condits have not filed a response to the Baskin-Robbins lawsuit.

Chad Condit failed to respond to a lawsuit filed in January by the California Fair Political Practices Commission, which seeks $2 million for alleged misuse of a political action committee fund established by his father.

The commission's enforcement division "is now taking steps to obtain a default judgment against Chad Condit," the commission's general counsel reported last month.

Bee Washington Bureau reporter Michael Doyle can be reached at 202-383-0006, or mdoyle@mcclatchydc.com

[rd]

But by February 2006, BaskinRobbins claims, the Condits had defaulted on their financial reporting and payment obligations. The company terminated the two franchise contracts in March, claiming the Condits owe at least $14,221.29. The company also claimed the Condits have kept operating the store under the Baskin-Robbins name even after losing the franchise.

Well, I guess Condit thought he could initimidate a local Cave Creek free distribution paper into forking over $14,000 to keep his ice cream stores open. Holy cow.

The good news from this is that it puts the spotlight back on the rock he crawled under, and will show once again that he is all bluff until it comes time to testify about Chandra's disappearance under oath.

The he bails, so to speak, speaking of Darrell.

"Everybody knows they have no intention of bringing this to trial," Sonoran News attorney Dan Barr said Monday. "Just imagine what his jury appeal would be."

The paper sounds real intimidated. Maybe Gary can make some money writing a book that explains what he explained to Chandra.

rd
_________________
ralph@ee.net

[fallout]

I thought he "explained it all"!

Anyway, maybe the Sonoran News (great name for a paper zzzzzz) has a few cojones and will fight the Condit machine in court instead of settling.

That would be quite 'unsettling' for the family business I imagine...

James

[rd]

I'm sorry, James, I was being sarcastic. The paper's lawyer said that everyone knows Condit won't go to trial, just imagine what his jury appeal would be.

They are laughing at him. They have all the cajones needed to deal with Condit. More than the DC police did.

rd
_________________
ralph@ee.net

[laskipper]

Hard to mis-manage an ice cream store I would think...

But then the Condit family has other interests - they purchased several parcels in the Flagstaff area and have a different type of business going.

Mike Doyle stated it was GC Farms and Excavation Inc, but I can't seem to find any business by that name in the Arizona corporations. Then again, I didn't try too hard.

They paid some huge $$$ for the endeavor- 460k for just one of the two pieces of land. Then, I would imagine, there would be start up costs. The big machinery costs big bucks.

They got that company going back in October, 2004. Most likely, that is why they lost interest in the BR store.

Thing is, I wonder where they came upon that kind of cash back in '04?

The lawsuit wasn't settled til much later, right?

Maybe some favors from old cronies? Ties to the Ag business, kind of.

When time permits, I'll see what else I can learn about GC Farms.

ls
_________________
A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves
~
French philosopher Bertrand de Jouvenel (1903-1987)

[jane]

Hi Skipper! I couldn't find any references to GC Farms and Excavation in any of the recent articles on GC (Gary Condit). I looked up 'GC' businesses in Arizona and couldn't find anything that looked 'our' GC-related.

[rd]

jane, Condit establishing GC Farms and Excavation is in a recent Michael Doyle ModBee article but is nowhere else to be found on the net. I notice skipper has seen some related land transactions, however.

My personal opinion is that Condit did not come up with that kind of money from settlements with Dunne or NE, and if he had, that he would have been able to leverage $14,000 from it to keep his Baskin-Robbins franchise.

However, I don't know, but it doesn't make any sense to me. I do think Carolyn won a settlement against NE for a modest amount and was able to buy a place to live in Scottsdale with it.

I'm not sure whether she got enough to also buy an ice cream store or whether that came from Chad's slush fund, so to speak. The slush fund California is suing him $2.2 million for. Sounds like the Condits quit paying Baskin-Robbins their franchise sales fees about that time.

They're digging themselves quite a hole.

rd
_________________
ralph@ee.net

[jane]

Yeah, it sounds like they are digging themselves a hole, alright (and running out of options for suing!)

[jane]

Found the reference to the GC farm/excavation business:

fair use

Five years later, those close to Chandra Levy still feel loss

By MICHAEL DOYLE
McClatchy Newspapers
01-MAY-06

WASHINGTON -- Susan Levy tried the tango.

She rides horses. She exercises, furiously. She sings her heart out; and still, with the dawn, all distractions fall away and she comes back to remembering.

"I wake up every morning," Susan said, "and the first thing I think is, 'My daughter isn't here.' "

Five years ago, Chandra Levy was last seen in the nation's capital. Eventually, her skeletal remains were found in Washington's Rock Creek Park. Investigators say they have identified a "person of interest" as they search for suspects, and they continue to conduct interviews, but her murder still defies solution.

What comes unbidden now are ghostly images that do not rest.

Like when Susan Levy awakens, or when James Lau is rollerblading under the Southern California sun. Then it kicks in. Lau abruptly flashes on his grad-school friend who was surprisingly deft on wheels.

"I'll be doing something that reminds me of her," Lau said, "and I get to thinking, and it just makes me sad."

Lau is now 31, working for a children's nonprofit organization in Santa Monica. He and others in Chandra's University of Southern California circle still socialize, although Lau noted that "we don't talk about her that much" anymore. So much has transpired since Levy was last seen: 9/11, the Iraq war, the political demise of her alleged paramour Gary Condit, and, for her old school chums, the arrival of a fully embodied adulthood that not everyone attains.

Everyone copes, in his or her own way. Chandra's father Bob, a Modesto oncologist, finds salvation in work. Susan Levy pursues different paths. After some fuzzy years that included pronounced depression and serious gall-bladder surgery, she sounds on the rebound and ready for something good.

In Washington, investigators cope by not giving up.

Capt. C.V. Morris, commander of the Washington Metropolitan Police Department's violent-crimes branch, said in an interview Friday that "we have a person of interest," which he defined as "somebody the department is looking at, somebody we want to keep tabs on," but he noted that this falls short of having an actual suspect.

"It will take someone confessing they did it," FBI special agent Brad Garrett said in an interview Friday, when asked what it will take to solve the crime.

And on the northernmost outskirts of Phoenix, in a desert-hugging adobe home situated between communities called Carefree and Wrangler's Roost, former Congressman Condit plays the hand he helped deal himself.

"He's fine," Condit's mother Jean insisted, while standing on her son's front doorstep.

A lifelong officeholder who rose from Ceres, Calif., mayor to 14-year congressman, Condit is now publicly and politically neutered. That's hell for a 56-year-old, naturally adroit legislator.

"The news media just crucified him," Condit's father Adrian said tearfully, "and they took away from him what he spent his whole life working for."

Condit, who is now engaged in several Arizona businesses, did not respond to multiple interview requests.

For investigators, too, life moves on but in complicated ways. Chandra Levy's murder is now only one of 150 unsolved Washington homicides logged between Jan. 1, 2001, and March 24, 2006, and noted on the Washington Metropolitan Police Department's Web site.

"I don't believe they are any closer to solving it," said Terrance W. Gainer, formerly Washington deputy police chief, and "the odds are getting worse as time goes on."

In hopes of dislodging something new, the Levy family recently began a new Web site that invites tips. The site, www.whokilledchandra.com, seeks "leads from sources not previously provided," said Steve Mandell, the Levys' Washington-based attorney.

Periodically, new theories arise and recede. A Guatemala native now in prison on charges of attacking two women in Rock Creek Park, Ingmar Guandique, once was targeted for polygraph tests in Levy's murder. Guandique is now serving a 10-year term at the high-security federal prison in Marion, Ill., which often houses problem inmates.

Termed "a predator" by federal prosecutors, who secured Guandique's guilty plea to two counts of assault with intent to commit robbery in 2001, Guandique reportedly declined through his public defenders to take a second polygraph exam. Neither Morris nor Garrett would identify Guandique as the specific "person of interest," although he is clearly interesting to them.

Raised in Modesto, Levy came to Washington in 2000 as part of her graduate-school training in public affairs. She interned for the Bureau of Prisons. That October, at age 23, she came to know Condit. Once she disappeared, the exact nature of her relationship with the Democrat 30 years her senior incited intense speculation.

Condit, though, never disputed public accounts that he eventually admitted to police that he had a sexual relationship with Levy. Condit's third, crucial law-enforcement interview in 2001 occurred some 67 days after Levy disappeared.

Battered by bad publicity following the disappearance, Condit lost his House seat in 2002 to his former aide, Democrat Dennis Cardoza of Merced. An embittered Condit hasn't talked to Cardoza since. Condit also cut himself off from most of his former aides.

Although the Condits still own their Ceres home, Condit and his wife Carolyn in 2003 bought their new house on the far outskirts of Phoenix.

Condit's son Chad, his last campaign manager, lives in Arizona, too. Last year, Arizona public records show, the family established GC Farms and Excavation Inc. The company declared it would be in the business of "horse (and) bulls rodeo training (and) land development." The Condits also operate a Baskin-Robbins in the Phoenix suburb of Glendale. They avoid the press, and frankly loathe reporters.

California's Fair Political Practices Commission served Chad and his sister Cadee with a $2.4 million lawsuit. State officials say the children improperly used their father's campaign funds for private purposes. Cadee Condit's lawyer says the state is going too far by demanding $2.4 million in a case involving $226,000 in campaign funds.

"It reminds me of people who file lawsuits asking for $50 million," said Los Angeles-based attorney Mark Geragos, who also represented convicted murderer Scott Peterson.

Geragos characterized Cadee as being "an innocent recipient" of the funds. Geragos added that he does not know who represents Chad Condit, although he still periodically talks with Gary.

"He's a guy," Geragos said, "whose career was destroyed for no reason."

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.)

[rd]

That Condit "explained it all" just before Chandra disappeared is one of those questions to be answered. What did he explain, and did it have anything to do with Chandra disappearing?

But here is a different nuance to what Chandra told her mother, from a Newsweek interview with Susan Levy in chapter Exposed in Murder on a Horse Trail:

When did you and Mr. Thomas have this conversation
about his daughter's alleged involvement with
Condit?

MRS. LEVY: Early April, end of March. We were
talking about daughters in general, and it just kind
of came out about his daughter. I didn't tell him
anything about whom [Chandra] was seeing because I
did not know. But I used a mother's intuitive thing
to put two and two together and that's how I knew,
and I asked my daughter about it directly afterward
on the phone. And told her to be careful, because I
didn't want her to get hurt. [Later] she told me she
had talked to her friend and she said, "Everything's
OK. He knows everything," and then a little bit
later my daughter no longer has her job and a few
days later she disappears. What can I say? Kind of
strange to me. Real strange.


You think that conversation was pivotal?

MRS. LEVY: I have no idea. I know the relationship
was supposed to be very secret. And something
happens and it gets out, and all of a sudden my
daughter's missing. I feel responsible in a way.
Maybe if I hadn't raised that story, things would be
different. I don't know. It makes me wonder.


Levy, Susan. Interview. Newsweek. 13 Aug. 2001.

end quote


"He knows everything". Condit not only explained it all, he knew something to explain. What was it he knew, and why did Chandra disappear when she knew it too?

rd
_________________
ralph@ee.net

[laskipper]

Hello all,

"He knows everything"....well doesn't that just rot your socks?

All this time we've been stating "he explained everything".

If that is true, the "he knows everything" statement, then it sounds as though Chandra was on the defensive, doesnt' it?

I swear that I read the latter (he explained everything) in an article or two.

What comes to mind for me is that Susan Levy is not being fully honest in the interviews. I can't blame her, under the circumstances. Seems to me as though she knew at the time of the Otis Thomas conversation, just exactly who Chandra was dating. Why else would Otis just blurt out what he did? That's what I've been thinking right along- not that it matters...

Another thing, you know how you hear about bit and pieces related to a crime that come out after the fact? Say, after they caught the perp? Seems to be standard to withhold key facts- which makes me wonder what those could be in Chandras' case.

Could be something 'pivotal' such as the Otis Thomas conversation?

Another thing that comes to mind is the National Geographic website that Chandra pulled up that day- May 1. I pulled the link up and there was a good portion of the firsts page devoted to the Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival- which was around the same time frame. That PR disappeared from the link shortly after I mentioned it on one of the boards. Also interesting.

In case any of you forgot, the festival was in the Luray area.....

Lots of little clues and tidbits..

ls
_________________
A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves
~
French philosopher Bertrand de Jouvenel (1903-1987)

[rd]

It's interesting, skipper. Each nuance gives some insight into what really happened.

The "explained it all" is real, of course. It has one authoritative source on the net, that being a July 15, 2001 Time article by Karen Tumulty, "Sex, Lies, and Polygraphs". The relevant quote:

Most damaging of the accusations last week was that seven years ago, Condit had an affair with the teenage daughter of a Pentecostal minister in his district. It is the stuff of daytime soaps. The minister just happened to do landscaping work for the Levys. According to the Washington Post, while the Rev. Otis Thomas was caring for the roses by the Levys' backyard pool, Chandra's mother struck up a conversation about her daughter's friendship with the Congressman. Thomas then confided that his own daughter Jennifer, now 26, had had an affair with Condit years ago, and that it had ended badly. Susan Levy immediately called her daughter to warn her. Like many moms, she was told to butt out. Chandra later assured her mother that Condit had "explained it all." (Condit, through his chief of staff, denied the affair with Thomas' daughter.)

but the source is Petula Dvorak and Allan Lengel of the Washington Post in a July 12, 2001 article, "Minister Says Daughter, at 18, Had an Affair With Condit":

In an interview with The Post, Levy confirmed that she had the conversation with Thomas and that she had argued with her daughter about the relationship with Condit. In mid-April, when Susan and Robert Levy were in the Washington area to celebrate their daughter's birthday, Chandra told her mother that she had talked to Condit about the affair described by Thomas and that the congressman had "explained it all" to her, Susan Levy said.

So she described to the Post as Chandra telling her he "explained it all", and to Newsweek a month later as Chandra saying "he knows everything". Freudian slip? I think so.

In any event, Susan is recalling a conversation with her daughter, one of the last ones she had with her, in which her daughter assures her that after asking her secret friend about an affair with an 18 year old black minister's daughter that everything is ok, and then her daughter disappears.

Did Chandra say he "explained it all", or "he knows everything"? Maybe a little of both. The point is that he assured her that he knew something, and that it was ok.

And then Chandra got terminated from her internship job, and disappeared. Doesn't sound like it was ok to me.

Note that in mid-April when her parents were visiting Washington and Chandra said she talked to Condit about this and passed on it's ok to her mom, Condit told the police he was in California on Easter recess. However, according to a statement Dayton made, the last time Chandra signed Condit's office guestbook was also in mid-April.

And the last phone call of record from Chandra to Condit's message line is April 13. She lost her internship the next week, and then her life.

rd
_________________
ralph@ee.net

[rd]

If Condit did go to California for Easter recess, when did he go, and did he instruct Chandra to go to his office to call him so that there would be no record of a call from her to him in California?

It was Easter recess, and the office would be lightly staffed.

The first week of Easter recess Chandra talked to him often, every day. Her parents witnessed this. Yet the only number she dialed was his message line in Washington.

She never dialed his message line again after Friday, April 13, after she had talked to him all week of that first week of Easter recess. And she used her father's cell phone to make those calls, saying that her phone battery was dead.

She also asked him about OC Thomas at her mother's insistence, and told her mother that it was ok, he explained it all.

But there is no record of a phone call to him after that, even the next day, her birthday, April 14. Why after talking all week did they not talk on Saturday, her birthday?

Had Condit returned to California then? Had she been talking to him all week in California, or DC? Why is there no phone record of her calling him in California, or him calling her in DC?

But her parents returned to California also the next day, Sunday, April 15. And Chandra returned to work on Monday, April 16.

When did Chandra sign in to Condit's office guestbook, the entry Dayton refers to her as her last visit, and what was she doing there if Condit was in California?

Her friend Jennifer Baker, a volunteer intern in Condit's office, had long since departed back home with the rest of the USC grad students in December. Only Chandra had remained behind in DC in what the Bureau of Prisons refers to as a "normal" internship. It was anything but normal.

There was definitely phone silence after Condit explained it all to her about Jennifer Thomas. Where there had been daily phone calls to Condit's personal message line before, the calls suddenly stopped.

Did Condit instruct her to call him from his office instead? There would be no trace of her calling him, just a routine call from the office, and none was found.

Who was staffing the office when she signed in, and what did she do while there? Dayton lived close by. He wouldn't be returning to California for the two week recess. He did go to California with Condit for the August summer recess. Did he normally go with Condit during the August recess, or did they have a lot to discuss with Chandra missing and reporters chasing Condit everytime he came out of hiding?

Did Condit not instruct Chandra to go to his office? He had told her everything was ok, nothing like never call me again. But she didn't, at least not from her phone as she had been doing every day. So it seems unlikely he gave her instructions banning her from his life. She was still happy. Clearly nothing like that had been said to her.

But she was in his office, and someone was there with her. Dayton knew of her visit, remembered when she signed in very clearly to tell reporters. Did she call Condit from there?

More importantly, was she sent there to be set up for immediate termination from her internship job and a basis for Condit initially telling the police she was obsessed with him?

Or did Condit just want no record of a phone call to him from her phone, and told her to use his phone at his office? She was at his office for some reason, and someone knows what she did there.

Whether Condit told her to go to his office or not, the Bureau of Prisons saw fit to terminate her internship immediately by the end of the week. Did her visit to Condit's office during Easter recess have something to do with that?

Was she set up to be terminated?

rd
_________________
ralph@ee.net

[fallout]

"He explained it all" vs. "He knows it all"

Frightening in either form, this statement has such finality!

And then she disappeared.

I have one explanation. Shoot at it if you will.

Thomas is talking with Mrs. Levy. One of them, probably Susan Levy, mentions that her daughter is "seeing" an older man involved in politics. Thomas can figure this out pretty quickly. The girl is in DC not in Sacramento. It has to be a Congressman or a Senator. They have one local Congressman. Thomas has heard the stories about Condit being a skirtchaser while he was local. Now he's in DC and so is Chandra.

Thomas is used to speaking allegorically about the Bible and his belief. He likes Mrs. Levy. He's been helping her with her garden for years. Now she's expressing a concern about her daughter. The 'reverend' in him wants her to have something to compare her situation to. He invents something to illustrate the perils of immorality and straying too far from home. He fabricates. He comes up with a story about his daughter seeing the congressman. He wants Mrs. Levy to understand that Sodom on the Potomac can lead to a fall. He wants Mrs. Levy to warn her daughter to stay away from this powerful un-named older man. He lies to her in order to get her to act right away.

Bizarre, Susan Levy almost immediately goes to the phone and calls her daughter and the disputed quote above is the response. Someone needs to ask Susan Levy which of the two she actually said. Or maybe she said it differently to Time and to Newsweek.

Anyway, I'm still wondering, where is Thomas's second daughter, the identical twin? Is she missing? Or did she ever exist? Very, Very Confusing.

James