Arrest Said to Be Near in Killing of Chandra Levy

By IAN URBINA

WASHINGTON — Police officials here are close to making an arrest in the killing of Chandra Levy, the former federal government intern whose disappearance in 2001 ended Gary A. Condit’s Congressional career after his relationship with her was revealed, several law enforcement officials familiar with the investigation said on Saturday.

Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier contacted Ms. Levy’s family on Friday to inform them that officials would be pressing charges, probably in the next several days.

Law enforcement officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because charges had not been filed, identified the suspect as Ingmar Guandique, 27, who has previously denied any involvement in Ms. Levy’s disappearance and killing.

Ms. Levy’s killing is one of Washington’s most sensational unsolved crimes and has brought intense pressure on the Police Department. She disappeared on May 1, 2001, and more than a year passed before her body was found in Rock Creek Park.

Mr. Guandique pleaded guilty to assault in September 2001 in two cases involving attacks on women in the park in May and July of that year. He is serving a 10-year sentence at a federal prison in Adelanto, Calif., and is eligible for parole in 2011.

The police recently submitted new evidence to the United States attorney’s office after an inmate serving time with Mr. Guandique contacted them, law enforcement officials said. The inmate said Mr. Guandique told him that he had killed Ms. Levy, the sources said.

In the initial investigation, Mr. Guandique told the police that he had seen Ms. Levy in the park but that he had not harmed her. The police called Mr. Guandique a “person of interest” but said he had passed a polygraph test. City officials familiar with the investigation said that prosecutors had convened a grand jury but that it was not clear how much evidence they had submitted to it.

The news of a possible arrest in the case was first reported by the television stations KFSN and KCRA in California and WRC in Washington.

Ms. Levy’s brother, Adam Levy, 27, who is studying to become a computer animator at Mount Ida College in Newton, Mass., said he found out about the possibility of an arrest Saturday morning.

“I wouldn’t really use the word closure, but it’s justice in a way,” Mr. Levy said. “It’s not going to bring the person back, but it’s justice in terms of a person facing punishment for the crime.”

Ms. Levy’s mother, Susan Levy, expressed a similar sentiment in an interview on CNN. “I want justice,” she said. “No matter what, it’s a bittersweet situation for me as a family member, a mother of a daughter who’s no longer here.

“But I want justice. I want to know that the person that did it is in jail and will not ever do it to anybody else. That’s very poignant.”

Chandra Levy, a native of Modesto, Calif., had been an intern for the Federal Bureau of Prisons in Washington.

The investigation into her disappearance uncovered an affair with Mr. Condit, a Democrat representing the 18th Congressional District, which includes Modesto. Mr. Condit, a seven-term representative who was a senior member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, was married at the time.

In their original investigation, the police questioned Mr. Condit, who acknowledged that he and Ms. Levy had been in a relationship. He was not considered a suspect, but the negative publicity is cited as the main cause of Mr. Condit’s defeat in his 2002 re-election campaign.

“While very good news,” a lawyer for Mr. Condit, Abbe D. Lowell, said in a telephone interview, “it is a tragedy that the police and media obsession with former Congressman Condit delayed this result for eight years and caused needless pain and harm to the families involved.”

In a statement to the Washington television station WJLA, Mr. Condit said: “For the Levy family, we are glad they are finally getting the answers they deserve. For my family, I am glad that their years of standing together in the face of such adversity have finally led to the truth.”

Chief Lanier said in a statement, “This case generated numerous bits of information, which we continue to follow up on.” She declined to comment further.

The news of Ms. Levy’s killing led to widespread speculation that Mr. Condit was involved, which fed newspaper coverage of the case for months. After losing the primary election in 2002 to a former aide, Mr. Condit moved to Arizona. In 2005, he set up an ice cream franchise for Baskin-Robbins and sued several journalists over their coverage of the case.

Liz Robbins contributed reporting from New York, and Jesse McKinley from San Francisco.

Detectives in the Chandra Levy murder case are focusing on a man convicted of assaulting two women jogging in Rock Creek Park last year -- a suspect who was initially discounted after he passed a polygraph test that investigators now believe was flawed.

Oh George.....read the story...pullleeze!.....The FBI did not make this statement.....a police spokesman said that the FBI was reviewing the test....and this is hardly the rendering of an official opinion..........God!...you guys are sooooooooo thick!

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The father of missing teenager Elizabeth Smart was given a polygraph test, police said Monday.

"(Edward Smart) did submit to a polygraph yesterday and that's being reviewed by the FBI," said Salt Lake City Police Capt. Scott Atkinson.

Police won't say why they asked Smart to take a the test.

''It's not uncommon'' for police to give such tests to parents, or to do several interviews, said Salt Lake City Detective Jay Rhodes.

Monday was the sixth day of the search for 14-year-old Elizabeth, who police said was abducted from her home. Authorities are no closer to finding the teen and say they are baffled by the case that is quickly growing cold.

...

WASHINGTON -- FBI experts on Tuesday began examining Rep. Gary Condit's private lie-detector test, while police searched woods in the Chandra Levy disappearance, and Condit went about his business in the camera's glare.

Although skeptical of the test sprung on them by Condit's attorney, Washington police officials say the FBI's laboratory will give it a fair reading. Police gave the results to the lab on Tuesday after receiving them Monday.

"It has to be analyzed," Executive Assistant Police Chief Terrance Gainer told reporters Tuesday afternoon. "It really takes an expert in the field to make heads or tails of it, and it would be pitiful for me to try."

...[f]ollowing the interview on December 23, 1998, DOE polygraphers administered a polygraph examination of LEE. The examiner's initial opinion was that LEE was not deceptive. However, subsequent quality control reviews of the results, by both DOE and by FBI Headquarters (HQ) resulted in an agreed finding that LEE was inconclusive, if not deceptive, when denying he ever committed espionage against the United States.