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CNN Larry King Live
A Look at the Secrets and Lies in the Lives of Chandra Levy and Gary Condit
Aired August 02, 2001 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ROGER COSSACK, GUEST HOST: Tonight, an exclusive sneak peak at the secrets and lies in the lives of Chandra Levy and Gary Condit. What was the beautiful intern determined to get from her married lover in the weeks before she vanished? "Talk" magazine's Lisa DePaulo reveals the results of more than two months of digging, including details of Chandra's intimate confidantes to her closest male friend in Washington.
Then, outspoken discussion with former federal prosecutor and best-selling author Barbara Olson. She is in Ellison Bay, Wisconsin. And in Los Angeles, defense attorney Mark Geragos. In San Diego, former federal prosecutor Cynthia Alksne. And back here in D.C., former chief minority council for the House Judiciary Committee, Julian Epstein, and it's all next on LARRY KING LIVE.
Hello and welcome to "LARRY KING LIVE." I'm Roger Cossack, sitting in for Larry King, who is off on a well-deserved vacation, but will of course return tomorrow night.
Joining us and joining me tonight is Lisa DePaulo from "Talk" magazine, whose new article, "Secrets and Lies," will be on the news stands August 8. You spent two months researching this, and this is, as far as I am concerned, the final and ultimate word on Chandra Levy.
Let's talk a little bit about what you called your article. You described her as vulnerable. Your headline says she was independent, discreet and romantic, with a taste for older men. She seemed like the perfect girlfriend for a married congressman, one with plenty of secrets of his own. Why? That's the headline to your piece.
LISA DEPAULO, "TALK" MAGAZINE: Chandra was incredibly vulnerable to someone like Gary Condit. She had been hurt before in relationships similar to this. She was both a sensuous woman and discreet woman. When things were going fine, I am sure it was the perfect girlfriend for him.
COSSACK: But you -- you mentioned the fact and you bring up in your article that you had an opportunity to speak with perhaps her closest friend here in Washington, a man by the name of Sven Jones, and you spent a lot of time discussing Chandra with him, and you talk about the fact that in her past, she had had relationships with other married older men. Talk about that. DEPAULO: Correct. And it was something that friends who knew about it were always very worried about her for that reason, because Chandra was so -- I hope, is -- so smart and sensible about so many things -- her career, her education. She just finished a really tough master's program. She was smart. She was cautious. She carried mace on her key chain. There was one area that she was not as smart, and it was her choice of men.
COSSACK: Well, but her choice of men seemed to be a choice that she made over and over again. You point out the fact that she had reportedly had a relationship with an older man in Modesto, a police officer.
DEPAULO: Correct.
COSSACK: That went on for how many years?
DEPAULO: Over two.
COSSACK: And that broke up in a negative way. Tell us about that.
DEPAULO: It did. She was terribly hurt. She told friends, I can never be hurt like this again. I think what's so important about all of this -- I always felt that the -- the dynamic of the relationship with Gary Condit was key to understanding what has happened to her.
And I think the -- you know, an emotional road map that she brought to that is part of the reason she was so determined to get this commitment from him. She believed his -- you know, he definitely let her to believe that they would have a future together. I think where as another girlfriend might have said, OK, it's no big deal, if it's over, it's over, she was not going to be that way. I think she was particularly vulnerable to Gary Condit, and...
COSSACK: But, Lisa, let me just say this, in the article, again, you document, or you talk about the fact that not only did she have an affair with this married police officer, but she had an affair with a doctor, elderly -- older, married doctor.
DEPAULO: Chandra loved older men. In fact, Chandra loved older people.
COSSACK: Older married men?
DEPAULO: There were, yes.
COSSACK: And so the notion...
DEPAULO: It's not a pretty thing, but you know what? There is so much about it that, you know, it's just -- it was kind of heartbreaking to find some of this out, because if this ends as badly as I think it's going to end, the really sad thing is that this woman, which she wanted most was a monogamous marriage, she wanted to get married, she wanted to have kids. She was monogamous, but she was attracted to men who would never, ever, ever, give her that. And it's -- it's really tragic that -- that that was what was happening.
COSSACK: In your article, you quote her friend Sven Jones as saying -- as telling her and saying, "I always wonder why you get involved in relationships that would inevitably, inevitably come to a..."
DEPAULO: That's another friend who said that.
COSSACK: ... "come to a bad ending?"
DEPAULO: Correct.
COSSACK: Why?
DEPAULO: Correct. You know, she doesn't fit the psychological profile at all of a woman who is attracted to married men. She has an incredibly loving family, affectionate, there is no distance -- which is usually the typical thing. You know, obviously the other theory is you try to replicate what you know or what works, but what's so sad about it is that what she wanted so much was in such direct conflict with the men she loved and trusted.
COSSACK: Chandra was -- unlike many young people who come to Washington, Chandra apparently, from what you have been able to find out, did not have a lot of close girlfriends here in the district.
DEPAULO: No. She confided in older people. Her aunt Linda, 16 years older than her; Sven Jones, you know, 13, 14 older than her. She liked older people, she felt more comfortable, she felt more intellectually stimulated by older men and older women, and you know, the other part of the married thing, which is so important to remember, is that Gary Condit was not your typical married guy.
He was not, you know, showering at midnight and going home to the wife. She was 3,000 miles away. So, to a 24-year-old, you know, who had been down this road before, you know, being told...
COSSACK: Who had been burned at least a couple of time, you say.
DEPAULO: Definitely, and terribly, terribly hurt. For this man to be this, you know, charming, fabulous congressman, to be saying to her, yes, we can be together was believable.
COSSACK: Now, Sven Jones, who you, as I say, you spent a lot of time interviewing, her closest friend, said that he described the relationship between her and Congressman Condit as very intense and very passionate. What did he say?
DEPAULO: He said that whenever they were together, the passion, the sexual -- there was a sexual power. And there was no question. Now, Chandra was not a kiss-and-tell kind of woman. As I said, she was discreet, she was private. But there was definitely that element of it, and that was a very strong element of it.
COSSACK: Now, you -- as I indicate, you spoke with Sven Jones a lot. DEPAULO: A lot.
COSSACK: Did you have a chance to get another source besides Sven Jones?
DEPAULO: Yes.
COSSACK: ... to try to corroborate what we heard?
DEPAULO: It was interesting. What was so striking to me about Sven was, I thought the only person she had confided in the end was her aunt Linda, and in fact in these crucial months, she was also talking to him almost every day. These crucial weeks, these crucial months, and what struck me was what he remembered, what he divulged was so consistent with what Linda Zamsky had said.
And then, also consistent with -- the emotional part was consistent with what her friends from college said, and from, you know, from California, from Sacramento, from L.A. It all fit together. What didn't fit was this -- this part of the puzzle that didn't fit with the smart, cautious, wise, together young woman.
COSSACK: All right. Let's take a break. When we come back, we are going to have more with Lisa DePaulo. Her article comes out August 8 in "Talk" magazine. More on Chandra Levy, stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSSACK: Hi. We're back on LARRY KING LIVE. I'm Roger Cossack, sitting in for Larry King, and we're talking to Lisa Depaulo, whose article comes out August 8th on Chandra Levy in "Talk" magazine.
Lisa, there was an interesting almost tension, if you will, between the congressman and Chandra Levy in the way each played against the other. She wanted him desperately to commit. He would placate her and then take away from her. Tell us how that works.
DEPAULO: It's a little creepy, the way it was described. Sven, the way he described it to me was that she would get angry, try to force a confrontation, usually, about this desire she had to get this commitment from him. And he would placate her, and she would go from being angry to being placated, to being angry to being placated. And I believe she was placated at the end.
COSSACK: Now, when you say "placate," give us a little more description. What do you mean?
DEPAULO: She would come in -- you know, the next day -- "I'm going to bring it up with him tonight, I'm going to tell him these are my needs, these are my requirements." And then the next day, "everything's fine. He said it's going to be fine."
Whatever happened the night before, she felt placated.
COSSACK: Now, she also had some thoughts and hopes of her own, according to Sven and your sources, and she wanted something more that, obviously what was going on.
DEPAULO: That's right.
COSSACK: And she thought about ways to get it.
DEPAULO: And there's no question that he nurtured those feelings.
COSSACK: Now, tell us what you mean by that. What is that?
DEPAULO: She had reason to believe that this was not another one that was going to end badly.
COSSACK: Well, look, he's married.
DEPAULO: Right. But doesn't live with his wife.
COSSACK: Obviously, his wife doesn't seem to be around, since she's back in California.
DEPAULO: Right.
COSSACK: But he is married.
DEPAULO: Right.
COSSACK: He's making her go through all of these -- the hoops. You know, don't show up. If anybody comes in here, get off the elevator at a different floor, don't carry ID. Obviously, that's not the signs that indicate a -- you know, a...
DEPAULO: A nice, stable relationship.
COSSACK: Yeah.
DEPAULO: But Sven Jones said something really interesting about that, which was, on level, she kind of liked the cloak-and-dagger stuff, and on another level she knew it precluded her from ever really having a really relationship.
COSSACK: But still, she...
DEPAULO: Keep in mind, 24.
COSSACK: But 24, at least according to Sven Jones and your sources, a life that had been burned over a couple of times, not traditional young woman's life.
DEPAULO: Correct.
COSSACK: But she wanted, and she had talked with Sven, about how she was going to get him to commit, and how she apparently thought he was going to leave his wife.
DEPAULO: There was one difference in what Sven told me and in what Linda Zamsky has said. And that was, Linda has said there was this five-year plan where she was willing to be patient and wait until he achieved whatever political goals, or finally found a way out of his marriage, or whatever, whatever. Sven had the feeling that it was more urgent to her.
But keep something in mind. Something huge happened between her last conversation with Linda Zamsky -- I mean, really long, intimate conversation with her lovely aunt -- and her disappearance, which was she lost her job. She suddenly had no plans. That might be the point where you say, hey, buddy, you know all of those promises? Now!
COSSACK: What about that, in terms of the time line here did she lose her job, and when was this coming to a head?
DEPAULO: Well, she lost her job on the 23rd, and it was sudden.
COSSACK: Twenty-third of April.
DEPAULO: Correct. And it was sudden. And she was cleaning out her desk and suddenly she no plans for the summer. She had to give up her apartment. She had no -- and this was a woman who planned. She was a planner. She planned her whole education, she planned her career. She was not used to having this cut-off like this. And keep in mind, the same time, a couple of things are happening. She's losing her job.
COSSACK: Right.
DEPAULO: She's telling people -- big cardinal sin that she is now committing. She's breaking the big rule.
COSSACK: The secrecy rule?
DEPAULO: Correct. And his wife comes to town. I mean, you know, there had -- and there were other aspects, too, that we don't know the answers to. But as you know, you know, Sven Jones mentioned that she told him right before she, you know, right at end, that she had a female problem.
COSSACK: Let me ask you about that. She told Sven Jones she had a female problem.
DEPAULO: Correct.
COSSACK: It's not for me to say what that might have been, but what do you think it was?
DEPAULO: Well, you know, women don't usually refer to pregnancy as a female problem. Especially women who want to be pregnant, which she did. She would have been very happy if she was pregnant with Gary Condit's child. So I don't think it was pregnancy. That doesn't mean that she -- I've discounted totally the possibility that she could have been. But I think it was something else.
I think it might have been some kind of sexually transmitted thing which, by the way, would have been extremely upsetting to this woman if it were true, because she really believed he wasn't having sex with anyone else. And if it weren't for Anne Marie Smith being brave enough to come forward, we might not know that. But she believed that she was the only sexual partner Gary Condit had.
COSSACK: But yet on April 28th, which was the last time that Sven Jones heard from Chandra Levy, she -- while sounding melancholy, she did not seem depressed or that -- or in that sense that she was unhappy.
DEPAULO: Saturday, she left this plaintive, melancholy message for Sven. It was not her normal, upbeat tone of voice. Then she also sent an e-mail to her landlord saying, all of a sudden I have no job, I have to leave. And this all happens within a couple of hours -- the same couple of hours that Caroline Condit is landing in Washington. So I don't think Saturday night was a real happy night for her. But by Sunday she is very happy again. We know Gary Condit is -- told the police that he did speak to her on the phone on Sunday. And if it followed the pattern -- and we don't know, but if it followed the pattern that Sven so eloquently described, she was placated again. Correct.
COSSACK: All right. Let's take a break. When we come back, more with Lisa Depaulo on Chandra Levy. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSSACK: Hello. Welcome back to LARRY KING LIVE. I'm Roger Cossack, sitting in for Larry King. We're talking with Lisa Depaulo, whose article "Secrets and Lies," a whole story on Gary Condit and Chandra Levy, will be in the newsstand in "Talk" magazine on August 8th.
Let's pick it up where we had just left off. We had talked about now that Chandra Levy had spoken, had a bad Saturday night, but on May 5th. She calls -- excuse me, not May 5th -- she calls her aunt right after that. I think that that's on Sunday, the following day.
DEPAULO: The 29th of April.
COSSACK: She calls her aunt on Sunday, the 29th of April, upbeat, happy...
DEPAULO: "And I have big news."
COSSACK: And I have big news. What about that?
DEPAULO: You know, I think the news may have been everything's fine. We may be going away together. It's very interesting, Chandra told the landlord she was leaving on the 5th. She told her aunt Linda that she was taking the next 10 days to pack. She wasn't due back for the graduation until the 11th. It's very likely that she maybe thought she was going somewhere with her boyfriend between the 5th and the 10th. That could be what she was packing for.
COSSACK: And she had told her aunt -- she had told her aunt about this relationship that she was having with the congressman, and her aunt knew about it. DEPAULO: Oh, yes. Her aunt knew about it. Her aunt was -- you know, we all have that one, like, great...
COSSACK: That one special relative.
DEPAULO: That one special auntie, and that's what Linda Zamsky is to her. And you know, Linda was 40, but married to Chandra's uncle, who is much older. And I think, you know, Linda was a great friend to her. But one of the things that has been a little bit distorted, at least from my conversations with Linda, is that, you know, she wasn't all approving. She was really worried about her. Did not want her hurt again. And -- but she wasn't saying oh, yippie, yay, you are dating a married guy.
COSSACK: Right, she was being a friend.
DEPAULO: She was being a friend.
COSSACK: All right, so this happens on Sunday the 29th, this is a message that her aunt gets on the answering machine, unfortunately, her aunt never gets the chance to call her back, so we don't know what that big news is.
And then Chandra is missing. Now her father and mother are obviously worried and terrified and one of the things they do is they call Congressman Condit on May 5th.
DEPAULO: First they called the D.C. Police.
COSSACK: Right.
DEPAULO: After not getting the answers back -- but keep in mind, they knew about -- just recently learned who the mystery boyfriend was.
COSSACK: How did that happen?
DEPAULO: She had been dropping hints for many months and then finally Mrs. Levy learned, partly through Aunt Linda. But they knew -- they knew there was this mystery boyfriend, they did not know it was Gary Condit until about two weeks before she disappeared. So the parents are obviously, you know, leaving her messages -- but I don't think they panicked for a day or two, because they knew that she was having this romance.
The sad part is, the job was over so nobody missed her at work.
COSSACK: Right.
DEPAULO: And after a few days, they were really panicking and they called the D.C. Police, could you please go check our daughter's apartment. Yes, yes, yes, and they didn't do it.
So they called back the next day. Please, can you check? And at the same time, they decided to call their congressman for help. They find out that he is in fact in Sirius that weekend with his wife. COSSACK: Sirius in part of California.
DEPAULO: Right, across the river from Modesto. And they call, Carolyn Condit answers the phone on the first phone call, so that eliminated the first question the Levys might have had, which is: is she with you?
COSSACK: Right. And so they have this kind of bizarre conversation where the father says, what do you want with my daughter?
DEPAULO: Dr. Levy called one night, Mrs. Levy called the next night, and it was a very traumatic weekend. What they relayed to me, when I met them, was they felt that he didn't sound shocked. They also felt it was odd that in the first conversation, he offered to give them reward money. They also said that, you know, when Mrs. Levy said are you having a relationship with my daughter?
Now, keep in mind his wife is standing next to him, so they're cutting him a break on that. But that one of the things that he said was no. And I'm -- in fact I was mentoring her, and one of the things that I suggested was, if she really wants to work for the FBI, she should learn a second language. All of it together seemed just odd.
They were calling because their daughter was missing. It just seemed odd to them.
COSSACK: Now, when the police finally go to Chandra's apartment. They find -- they find things that you would not normally find that a woman would not normally -- am I right? That a woman would not normally leave behind.
DEPAULO: Dr. Levy was so upset by Sunday night, that he called and begged and begged. Please go. And finally the cops go, and guess what they do? According to Dr. Levy, they call him back and say OK, we got in the apartment, she's not there. What they didn't mention was what was there. Her purse, her wallet, her half-packed suitcases, her jewelry. I mean, just were not there.
And so the Levys did not actually understand or find out the circumstances of their daughter's not being in the apartment for several more days.
COSSACK: All right. Let's take another break. When we come back we will be speaking to Anne Marie Smith, the stewardess who allegedly Gary Condit was having another affair with at the same time.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSSACK: We're back with LARRY KING LIVE. I'm Roger Cossack, sitting in for Larry King tonight.
Joining us now is flight attendant Anne Marie Smith. Anne Marie, you also knew in advance that Gary Condit's wife was coming to Washington, didn't you? ANNE MARIE SMITH, FLIGHT ATTENDANT: I did, and I told him that I had a few days off and I was able to come see him, if it would work out, and he said that it wasn't a good time, because his wife was coming in to town for a few days, probably for some doctor's appointment.
COSSACK: Did he seem upset about that, Anne Marie?
SMITH: No, not at all. It was like something that he had planned and he knew she was coming into town, and I guess she came in periodically to an to an institute in New Hampshire.
COSSACK: And Anne Marie, when you were in town during that time, just before and right during when Chandra became missing, when Chandra was missing, you spoke to the congressman several times on the telephone, didn't you? I am talking about that time between April 25th and May 3rd?
SMITH: Yes, I did. Actually he called me when his wife was in town that weekend. He called me, I believe it was Friday night, he called me Saturday, he called me Sunday morning, and then he called me the following week.
COSSACK: What was -- what would he discuss with you, when he called you?
SMITH: Just general. What he was doing. You know, how work was going. What my schedule was like and what I was doing. It was, you know, just our basic, every day conversation. He seemed fine, normal.
COSSACK: Anne Marie, you are also a baseball fan, isn't that true, just like Chandra?
SMITH: I am.
COSSACK: And did the congressman ever talk to you about a second language?
SMITH: Yes, he did. I told him, it's my goal to study French and become fluent in it, and he told me that I should study Spanish and he was trying to encourage me to, because he said, you know, that would give me further ahead.
COSSACK: And did you?
SMITH: No.
COSSACK: And Anne Marie, did he ever give you a gold bracelet?
SMITH: Yes, he did. He gave me -- it was actually a Christmas present, and I understand that it was the same one that he had given to Chandra.
COSSACK: An identical bracelet?
SMITH: Identical. COSSACK: Anne Marie, have you been in any contact with anyone regarding the obstruction of justice charges?
SMITH: I did meet with the U.S. Attorneys and several FBI agents and detectives around the middle of July. However, I have -- I have not heard back from them recently.
COSSACK: And you've had no further contact with them since then?
SMITH: No, there've been a few phone calls regarding, you know, a few questions that they have had. But that's about it.
COSSACK: Anne Marie, with all of this coming out about Congressman Condit and the Chandra Levy, how has this impacted your feelings and, you know, how do you feel about all of this?
SMITH: Well, it makes me really sad. He was somebody that I really trusted and, you know, I, like Chandra, thought I was the only one. And it was, it's -- it's been very shocking to me.
COSSACK: And in the sense of shock, why has it been so shocking? What's the most shocking part about it?
SMITH: When I first learned about it, he denied everything to me and then subsequently, things started to come out about it, and all along, he was telling me that I was the only one, and not to ask him, you know, any questions, you know, as far as -- he told me if I kept asking him questions it was going to ruin our relationship. I told him basically, if he was seeing somebody else, that I was out of the picture.
And so he would placate me just like -- like he would placate Chandra. I would get upset and he would make me feel better about the relationship. So things would go on for a little while and then I would get upset again and he would placate me. So the whole time he was lying to me, and then when things started to come out, then he tried to get me to lie for him and to perjure myself.
COSSACK: All right. Anne Marie Smith, we have to take a break right now. We will have more of Anne Marie Smith and our guest when we return.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSSACK: We're back on LARRY KING LIVE. I'm Roger Cossack, sitting in for Larry King tonight.
Anne Marie, did there come a time when Congressman Condit invited you to go on a Palm Springs trip?
SMITH: Well, he mentioned it back in November that perhaps we could go to visit a friend of his that he knew in Palm Springs, and he said: Well, you wouldn't mind if I brought you along?
COSSACK: And Anne Marie, did it turn out that he had apparently invited both you and Chandra to go on that trip?
SMITH: It appears to be that way.
COSSACK: All right, I think -- Anne Marie, Lisa is here and she has a couple of questions for you. Please go ahead, Lisa.
DEPAULO: Anne Marie, when you would get angry and he would placate you, how did he do it? What did he say? What would happen? Was it something he said? Was it sexual? What was it?
SMITH: A little bit of both. He would always make me feel like everything was OK, I was making a bigger deal out of it than it was -- that was necessary. You know, he would -- he would just kind of turn it around to -- I mean, I don't know how to put it into words, but he would manipulate it so that I would feel like everything was OK.
COSSACK: Anne Marie, when he called you -- I guess it was May 5th or May 6th, and told you that he was going to have to discontinue the relationship for a while, and then he said he might have to disappear, is that -- tell us exactly what he did say.
SMITH: Well, actually, he called me -- it wasn't May 5th. It was May 10th or 11th.
COSSACK: OK.
SMITH: And it was a Friday, I remember, Friday afternoon. And he said that he would -- he said, call me. He said that he was in trouble and that he would have to disappear for a while. He said, don't call me for a few days, I'll explain it all to you, you know, as soon as I get the first opportunity. However, I just can't talk to you for a few days. If you do call me, please just leave a very short message. Don't leave your name. Don't tell anyone about this phone conversation. Don't bring up my name to anybody.
And I was -- I just kind of sat there in shock. I mean, I was really -- I was very concerned about him. I didn't know what was going on.
DEPAULO: Anne Marie, I'm curious. Did he tell you, one of my constituents is missing?
SMITH: No, he never mentioned a word of it, and it wasn't until I went to D.C. on the 17th of May and I turned on the television and I heard the news that I realized what was going on. And at that point in time, I called him and left him a message. And I was like, you know, you need to explain this to me.
DEPAULO: And what...
(CROSSTALK)
DEPAULO: And what was that first explanation?
SMITH: Well, he called me back, and that was the phone call from Luray, Virginia. DEPAULO: Right.
SMITH: And he called me, and he once again, you know, made me feel good about everything. He's like: Everything's OK with you and me. You know, I just want to assure you that there's nothing wrong with our relationship, but he said, I'm just dealing with this situation. And basically, he wanted to sit down and explain it to me, but he also said that you wouldn't believe what they're trying to do to me. And I don't know who these people were that he was referring to.
DEPAULO: Did he tell you right away that he was involved with Chandra?
SMITH: No, I asked him, and you know, I was pretty straightforward with him. And he said no. And he said, I can't believe you're asking me these types of questions. And if -- if, you know, if you feel like I had anything to do with any of this, then you've been dealing with the wrong man.
COSSACK: Lisa Marie, did he ever explain to you anything about his wife, whether she was ill or why -- you know, anything about her?
SMITH: Yes. When I first met him, I asked him if he was married, and he said yes. But he said, my wife's very ill. She supposedly has encephalitis of the brain. And he said that their relationship was more of a friendship. He really, you know, cared about her, but he stayed with her more or less to take care of her.
COSSACK: OK. Lisa, what about Congressman Condit's wife? You had a chance to investigate it. Does she have encephalitis?
DEPAULO: What I was told by a close friend of the family that she has a condition. She's not an invalid, as people have been led to believe. She has a condition that results in painful migraines and painful nerve-ending problems, and it's exacerbated by stress. And as one person who's known her for 22 years said to me in Modesto, Carolyn is normally a very strong woman. Her illness is that she's in love with him. And he believed that all of these bouts were always triggered by her finding out something about him philandering.
COSSACK: What about the Levys? How are they handling this, Lisa?
DEPAULO: I think amazing, with just stoicness, and they will not stop until they get to the bottom of what happened to their daughter.
COSSACK: I just want to say that our viewers are seeing right now a live shot of the Levys apparently leaving their home in Modesto, California, getting into their car. That's Mrs. Levy perhaps even speaking to the press right now.
Lisa, what was Congressman Condit's reputation before this all happened?
DEPAULO: Well, that was the funniest thing. When I was in Modesto first in early June, there were two kinds of groups of people: these hardworking farm people who voted him in office by landslides. Then there were the kind of insiders, you know, the politically savvy guys who socialized with him. And they all knew the drill. It was like everybody knew, yeah, you know, Gary, has this woman thing, and you know, Gary, you know, has been cheating on his wife for all of these years. And they knew it, and it was almost like, you know, he's a cad, but he's our cad, because he also was a terrific congressman for the area.
COSSACK: I know. He was well-liked and well-elected. Let's take a break. We're going to have more when we come back on Chandra Levy. We're going to have our panel join us, so stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSSACK: We're back on LARRY KING LIVE. And now joining us is our regular panel of irregulars, if you will: Barbara Olson. Mark Geragos from Los Angeles; Cynthia Alksne, from San Diego, former federal prosecutor and Julian Epstein, the former chief minority council for the House Judiciary Committee. Mark, I understand that you have a question for Anne Marie.
MARK GERAGOS, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Yeah, I was going to say that the last time that you were on LARRY KING, you swore you were never going to appear in the media again. What happened?
SMITH: You know what, Mark, I am not appearing in the media, am I? Yes I do, right now, I was looking at it on screen. Did have you some change of mind?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Look who is talking, Mark Geragos.
SMITH: Actually, Mark, what does it matter?
GERAGOS: What is the relevance of any of this stuff that you've just heard? To your mind, Anne Marie.
SMITH: The relevance of what stuff?
GERAGOS: Of the things that you have been saying, and that we have just heard. How is that relevant to Chandra?
SMITH: You know what?
COSSACK: Go ahead Anne Marie -- Ann Marie, I was going to jump in here and say, you know, Mark Geragos, I am not going to let you ask that question because I get to ask the questions on this show and Ann Marie was gracious enough to come on. Ann Marie, do you have a question for Lisa?
SMITH: Yes, I do. One of the things I noticed in your article that I read is that Chandra called Congressman Condit several times during the days before her disappearance and nobody's really sure what day she actually disappeared but wouldn't he find it strange not to hear from her at all? Wouldn't he be a little bit concerned that he didn't get a message from her? I had phone calls phone calls from her when his wife was in town.
DEPAULO: I think that it's a really terrific question. I wish I knew the answer. I think it's been a question that I have had all along, why didn't he get alarmed on May 1, May 2, May 3, 4, and 5? Why didn't he report her missing? I think what you are adding to that makes it even more curious that he called you all of the time.
CYNTHIA ALKSNE, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Roger, could I ask a question?
COSSACK: Yes, go ahead.
ALKSNE: Anne Marie, did you ever travel in with him in the areas surrounding Washington, or did you ever have any -- you mention this one phone call from Luray, Virginia, did you ever go to Luray, Virginia with him or do you know what he was doing in Luray, Virginia?
SMITH: I have no idea what he was doing. It was about midnight when he called me from Luray.
ALKSNE: And this was on May...
SMITH: May 16, May 17.
ALKSNE: So this was after you learned that Chandra had disappeared, he was in Luray, Virginia.
SMITH: Right.
ALKSNE: Did he tell you what he was doing there?
SMITH: No, he didn't. He said that he was not in the area and he was not able to see me.
COSSACK: Julian.
JULIAN EPSTEIN (D), FORMER COUNSEL, HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: Well, I just wonder if we can broaden the discussion out a little bit. First I would like to complement Lisa on the article. I think it is a very well written narrative. It tells us a lot of interesting things, as much about Chandra as it does about Gary Condit. But I think that what Mark was trying to get at is that is important to keep our eyes prize. And while I think it is a well-written article, I don't see a great deal of information -- and maybe this wasn't Lisa's charge to do this -- but I don't see a great deal of information that advances, either factually or theoretically, the effort to attempt to find Chandra Levy.
I don't see how this advances the discussion anyway, and I think that in the face of the police saying, now, that Gary Condit's is not only not suspect, he's also not a central figure in this case, that I think the conversation verges dangerously on the edge of prurience, unless we can say that all of this all Condit all of the time, unless it is somehow advancing the cause of finding Chandra Levy. I don't see it. (CROSSTALK)
COSSACK: I want to Lisa respond to this, please.
DEPAULO: I hear what you are saying. I also think that part of the reason we have an FBI profiler now is to get some of these questions answered. What was her state of mind? What was the dynamic of this relationship? That is certainly one of the things that the FBI profiler is going after.
EPSTEIN: Another thing that you said when you were in the interview, it was an interesting interview with Roger was, that, during the last few weeks there were lots and lots of phone calls. Well, Michael Isikoff, who you know who has been covering this story very well...
DEPAULO: Well, I didn't say that -- actually I did not say that.
EPSTEIN: I thought that you said that during the last few weeks that there was lots of contact going on between the two of them because it was interesting...
DEPAULO: Oh, yes. There was lots of contact, and it's...
EPSTEIN: Well, explain that to us because Isikoff says that the contact really begins to trail off by about April.
DEPAULO: OK, and Salon just reported that there is a great deal of confusion over just what phone calls were made and what weren't made. We don't know that for sure as of today.
However, Linda Zamsky says that she was spending a great deal of time those last few weeks until the wife came to town at his apartment, so there was no need to phone call.
COSSACK: Let me interrupt you two for just a second. I have to get Anne Marie before she leaves. Anne Marie, do you have any recollection about that phone call that I asked you about from the congressman? Was it May 5, or 6, or was it May 10 or 11. Do you know?
SMITH: It was May 10. It was a Friday in the afternoon. I believe that it was May 10.
COSSACK: Thank you, Anne Marie Smith. I know you have to go. Thank you for joining us tonight. We are going to take another break. When we come back, more with out panel, and we will talk to Lisa Depaulo, too. Stay with us. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSSACK: We're back with LARRY KING LIVE. I'm Roger Cossack sitting in for Larry King tonight. Barbara Olson, you've been sitting there quietly, unlike of what I normally get from you. Come on, Barbara, talk to me about a little bit about Congressman Condit's future after this article and everything that has been said. BARBARA OLSON, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Well, I think Senator Dianne Feinstein came out today and said that she thought that his career was over. And I think I have to agree with her, although, I am a little confused as to why lying to her is somehow worse than lying to the police or the FBI or what Bill Clinton did.
But what I've been listening to and I think that it's very interesting, what Lisa's article did -- and I want to respond a little bit to what Mark said and Julian -- how does this advance the ball?
We have a real good picture of what was going on this weekend before Chandra's missing. We have Gary Condit with his wife in town. He's calling Anne Marie Smith saying that everything's OK.
He's calling, you know, Chandra is calling his pager. And he's got all of these thing going on. This is a man who, evidently, the relationship, I think, with Chandra was coming to a head, at least in her mind it was. She had lost her internship at the Bureau of Prisons. She didn't want the relationship to end in the way other relationship had.
She was going to have to go back to California. I think that obviously from what she was telling her friends then and everyone else, it was to the boiling point. It was boiling over. She had been at his apartment the week before. The day she talked to him for the last time, on the 29th, she suddenly calls her aunt and everything's fine. It seems that it's very clear if that whether Gary Condit is involved in her disappearance or not, certainly there was a lot going on with this relationship.
It's not, I don't think, just a coincidence that Chandra Levy is deciding that something must happen to this relationship.
EPSTEIN: And you know, Barbara...
OLSON: And obviously this is the last week for it.
EPSTEIN: Barbara, the issue about that is yes, all of this that is true, but the police have considered all of that information and more that you and I don't know about at this point.
And the police now have come out and said that whatever was going on with this affair, we all stipulate that Gary Condit was trying to keep this a secret. There is no argument about that, there's no defending that, but what the police have said -- and they know more than any of us -- is that not only is he no longer a suspect, but he is not a central figure.
So, you have to ask the question, are we teetering...
OLSON: Julian...
EPSTEIN: Barbara, if I just could -- are we teetering on the edge of irresponsibility by making this all Condit all of the time, when the police are telling us that we should be doing exactly the opposite. OLSON: Well, Julian, you may be teetering, and but I think...
(CROSSTALK)
GERAGOS: Barbara is way over the wall, she's not teetering anymore. She's gone completely over the wall.
OLSON: I'm not over the wall, Mark. I think what you have to do is look...
GERAGOS: Barbara, give me a break.
OLSON: ... at the profile that Lisa has given us.
GERAGOS: What difference does it any of this make? What difference does it make?
DEPAULO: Mark, I never expected you to get this, OK? There is no way you were going to get this.
(CROSSTALK)
OLSON: Are you all defending maleness or something? How come all of the women on the show get it and all of the men don't?
DEPAULO: Yeah, isn't that amazing?
(CROSSTALK)
COSSACK: Cynthia Alksne -- Cynthia Alksne, come on, I want to hear from you.
ALKSNE: Well, my favorite moment was -- we had all these blonds on the show, but it's really taken a redhead to put Geragos in his place, I just loved it. It was so sweet, it was worth sitting here for six days.
My favorite, and what I felt was most interesting about the article, was how clear it made it that she was going to force the issue, and that she was determined to have a confrontation, and that's the way Sven Jones described it.
COSSACK: OK.
(CROSSTALK)
COSSACK: Cynthia, let me told you off for just one second, because I have to take one more break. This is -- stay with us here on LARRY KING LIVE. We're going to have more on this when we come back. Boy, they've already got me upset. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COSSACK: This is LARRY KING LIVE, I'm Roger Cossack, sitting in for Larry King. I just -- a little of housekeeping before we go any further. Let me just -- before we go any further, there are a couple of things I want to bring up. One is that we, of course, from LARRY KING LIVE did invite the Levys to join us tonight and they declined our invitation at this time.
And I do want to ask you a question, Lisa. Look, it is going to come up, it is going to come up that you have written an article and in your article you told about Chandra Levy's past. And there are going to be people who will criticize and say, you know, why did you do this to someone who perhaps is a victim -- we don't know -- but why did you do this about this young girl, why did you tell about her past?
DEPAULO: I'm glad you -- because I think it's absolutely crucial to understand what this relationship was about and the emotions she brought to it. And I wish the answers were different, but I don't really think that what she was did was anything wrong. She was 24, and you know, fell in love with men who treated her badly.
And you know, it's -- it's terrible -- I mean, not quite this badly, but you know, it is -- there's definitely a gender gap going on with this story. A terrific reporter said to me the other day that, you know, the men involved in this case treat it like a crime story, and the women understand that it's a love story gone awry. And I think understanding...
GERAGOS: Oh, God.
DEPAULO: Oh, shut up, Mark!
(CROSSTALK)
GERAGOS: ... it's amazing what they have created out of this! A love story gone awry -- I mean, it's nonsense.
(CROSSTALK)
OLSON: What's very interesting I think is when we find out that the same bracelet was given to Ann Marie Smith as Chandra, it reminded me of Bill Clinton giving leaves of grass to Hillary and to Monica. It's like, there is a pattern here, yes.
(CROSSTALK)
GERAGOS: There is. There is. It's a pattern of psychosis, is what it is. It's a psychological pattern here.
EPSTEIN: I think you have to keep coming back and asking the question, Roger. When we talk about the bracelets and all of that, and of course, this may make good copy -- the question is: is it relevant to where Chandra Levy is today?
DEPAULO: It might be...
(CROSSTALK)
EPSTEIN: ... what I continue to hear -- if I may, Lisa -- is a lot of people putting a lot of dots out there and saying there may be some way of theoretically connecting it, notwithstanding the fact that police have said the dots don't connect up. And I think -- I am not here to defend him or attack him, I am here to say I think there should be some responsibility, and I think we have to be responsible.
Lisa, you know, in your piece, there are some stories that have come out about Gary Condit that turned out not to be true. And I think it's important...
DEPAULO: Not in my story.
EPSTEIN: Not in your story, but in other reporting...
(CROSSTALK)
COSSACK: Mark, should this article have been written, Mark?
GERAGOS: Should it have been written?
COSSACK: Yeah.
GERAGOS: I am a big protector of the First Amendment.
DEPAULO: I'm sure you didn't get through it yet.
(CROSSTALK)
GERAGOS: ... Lisa's out there, she can write that article. I don't understand the point of it in terms of how it advances the case, but I am sure there is an audience for it. Barbara is interested and Cynthia is interested in it, so you have got three readers right there.
(CROSSTALK)
ALKSNE: Let me tell you how it advances and why Barbara and I agree on this -- because we have done a lot of criminal investigations in our day, and one of the things that we know when you have actually conducted criminal grand jury investigations is, there is rarely such a thing as a coincidence, and when you add up things like this double- secret probation relationship, a demand for secrecy, a young lady who is bound and determined to have a confrontation with the man over his marriage, and his wife comes to town, and he lies to her family at a bare minimum, and possibly the police, and then he throws evidence away...
(CROSSTALK)
ALKSNE: The conclusion is, you don't throw away that person as a victim -- as the potential perpetrator.
GERAGOS: Cynthia, the police have all of this, the police have all of this, the police have said...
(CROSSTALK)
GERAGOS: ... and the police probably haven't read Lisa's article, so I'm sure they after they read Lisa's article, that they will re-evaluate everything.
(CROSSTALK)
GERAGOS: They have already decided that he has nothing to do with it!
(CROSSTALK)
COSSACK: Excuse me, and with this high-brow conversation, I am going to call an end to tonight's LARRY KING LIVE, and let me remind all of our viewers that probably hopefully so -- and gladly so -- Larry will be back tomorrow night with 12 of the 13 women from the United States Senate.
I am afraid that's all the time we have tonight. Thank you, I am Roger Cossack, sitting in for Larry King. Be sure and watch the king tomorrow night.
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