Condit Agrees to 4th Police Interview

ByABC News
July 25, 2001, 1:17 PM

W A S H I N G T O N, July 25 -- Law enforcement sources tell ABCNEWS that Rep. Gary Condit has agreed to meet for a fourth time with investigators looking into the disappearance of Chandra Levy.

The questioning will mark the second time FBI agents have participated in police interviews with Condit. Also joining this week's meeting will be an FBI victimization profiler. The profiler hopes Condit can help shed more light on Levy's life in Washington. This interview is expected to take place before the weekend.

Agents and police also want Condit to provide greater detail about the timeline of his activities on May 1, the day Levy vanished.

Police say Condit is not a suspect in Levy's disappearance. But the married congressman has acknowledged to police, sources say, that he carried on an affair with the 24-year-old Federal Bureau of Prisons intern.

Investigators also are expected to ask Condit about a watch box he was seen discarding in a trash bin in Northern Virginia hours before police searched his apartment on July 10.

Law enforcement sources say the watch box was traced back to a former Condit staffer, now 29 and married, who has told the FBI she had a sexual relationship with Condit while working in his Washington office in 1994. The woman has told police she gave the watch to Condit as a gift.

According to another former Condit aide, the woman worked first as a receptionist and later, after Condit's personal tutoring helped her learn the policy ropes, was promoted to legislative aide. Congressional records confirm the woman was an employee in Condit's office in 1994.

A former Condit aide says the young woman carried on an affair with Condit for at least a year in Washington, a relationship that continued after she left Washington and moved to San Francisco in the fall of 1994.

After she left the congressman's office, the source tells ABCNEWS, the female staffer became a "phantom employee," a term of art on Capitol Hill for a person who no longer works in an office but continues collecting pay. Though the source said she was a phantom staffer for at least a month, ABCNEWS has been unable to confirm a departure date to match against congressional payroll records.