After Search, a Polygraph Request Confronts Condit

Hours after a team of evidence technicians scoured the walls and floors of Rep. Gary A. Condit’s condominium Wednesday in a search for traces of Chandra Levy’s final movements, police officials were still trying to win a commitment from the congressman to take a polygraph test.

Investigators with blood- and fluid-sensing equipment filed into Condit’s residence at night. They emerged with bags containing a few undisclosed items from the apartment.

A source familiar with the search, which lasted from just after 11 p.m. Tuesday until about 3 a.m. Wednesday, said police forensics investigators removed four or five pieces. The evidence taken was described as minor items, but police officials would not specify whether the materials included Condit’s personal effects or residential materials, such as carpeting or paint flakes.

A police spokesman said the items were sent to the FBI’s crime lab in Quantico, Va., for analysis.

Condit was in the apartment during the search, said Maria Ein, a spokeswoman retained by the congressman.

Flashes of bright strobe and purplish ultraviolet light flickered from inside Condit’s windows, signs that police were applying chemicals used to detect blood, marks and fluids on walls and carpeting. The forensics team worked at night because its blood-detection techniques work best in total darkness, said a source familiar with the unit’s methods.

District of Columbia Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey said the six-member police and FBI forensics team went in looking for “signs of a struggle, blood, tissue, anything that would indicate something that’s unusual.”

He cautioned that the congressman was still not considered a suspect in Levy’s disappearance. The 24-year-old Modesto intern has not been seen for 10 weeks and is classified as a “critical missing person.”

“There are no suspects,” Ramsey said, “because we still don’t have evidence of a crime.”

Ramsey expressed optimism that Condit would soon submit to a polygraph test. Both Ramsey and Ein said that negotiations were moving apace and that Condit had imposed no restrictions.

“People are working out the details,” Ein said.

But by day’s end, an agreement had still not been reached. Condit’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, has expressed doubts about the polygraph’s legal reliability. The two sides were reportedly differing over the scope of questions that might be posed to the congressman.

“We do need a wide-ranging lie detector case. Otherwise it is useless,” Ramsey said pointedly.

Police officials are pressing for the polygraph exam and also for a DNA sample from Condit to try to learn more about his relationship with Levy and their contacts in the days just before Levy disappeared from her furnished apartment.

Though not admissible in D.C. courts, polygraphs can be used as tools to eliminate or zero in on possible suspects.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post reported that FBI agents have interviewed a Pentecostal minister from Modesto who described an affair between his then-18-year-old daughter and Condit, telling investigators that the congressman had warned her never to speak of the relationship.

Four law enforcement sources told the Post that the father, Otis Thomas, has been questioned by the FBI. Thomas said in an interview with the Post that he has encouraged his daughter to talk to the FBI but that she is afraid to do so and is in hiding. Thomas said her relationship with Condit ended about seven years ago.

Levy was last seen at a health club near her home on April 30. She left her credit and identification cards behind at some point the next day, taking only her apartment keys before locking her door.

Condit reportedly admitted to detectives last weekend that he had an affair with Levy--a concession that had not come in two earlier interviews. He has also acknowledged contacting her in the last days before she disappeared.

Federal prosecutors also were to meet Wednesday with Anne Marie Smith, a flight attendant who has publicly claimed that she had an affair with Condit. Smith and her lawyer have alleged that the congressman called her several times after the search for Levy began, urging her to deny their relationship to investigators.

Authorities requested the meeting, sources said, to try to decide whether to investigate Condit for encouraging false statements.

During a Wednesday night appearance on Fox News, Smith said she met with FBI agents and federal prosecutors for six hours.

Smith, 39, said Condit conducted their relationship with an obsession for secrecy, insisting that they always leave his D.C. apartment separately.

The United Airlines flight attendant said Condit called her several times after Levy disappeared, urging her to sign an affidavit prepared by his lawyer. The document would have denied any intimate relationship with the congressman.

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Times staff writer Anuj Gupta also contributed to this story.