Gary Condit Biography

Gary Adrian Condit was born on April 21, 1948, in Woodland Junction, near Salina, Oklahoma, US, to Adrian Burl Condit and Velma Jean (Tidwell) Condit. His father was a Baptist minister who preached at Little Rock Church.

Condit had two brothers and a sister, and the entire family visited church 4 times a week. At 14, he and his family moved to Tulsa. They lived next to the church where Condit’s father preached.

Condit initially attended Nathan Hale High School in Tulsa. He also worked as a roustabout in the oil fields of Oklahoma during his high school years.

Soon, Condit's father moved west to California to gather a new congregation. He served as a pastor of the Village Chapel Free Will Baptist Church in Ceres, California, located about 100 miles east of San Francisco.

Condit thus joined Modesto Junior College. In 1970, he obtained an Associate of Arts degree from the same.

In 1972, he obtained his bachelor's degree from the California State University in Stanislaus. While in college and later, he worked many odd jobs. He once worked at a tomato cannery and then joined a munitions factory during the Vietnam War.

After working in a public relations firm for a while, Gary Condit ran for local office and won the election to the Ceres City Council in 1972. In 1974, Condit became the mayor of Ceres, one of the youngest in the history of California.

From 1976 to 1982, he was part of the Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors. In 1982, at age 35, he took over as a Member of the California State Assembly from the 27th district.

In the mid-1980s, Condit and US attorney Charles M. Calderon joined hands with three other moderate Democrats and formed the Gang of Five. They were infamous for trying to push policies in a centrist direction. The group also openly challenged the leadership of Willie Brown.

The group, however, was unsuccessful in its attempt to oust Brown. Members lost choice committee assignments, leadership positions, and other advantages.

In 1989, Gary Condit ran for Congress in a special election, when incumbent Tony Coelho resigned due to a financial scandal. Condit won and took over as a Member of the US House of Representatives in September 1989.

While he initially represented the 15th district, he later represented the 18th district. He continued in office till January 2003.

In 1995, he co-established the Blue Dog Democrats. It was a group of over 20 conservative Democrats who would vote in support of Republican-sponsored bills.

In the mid-1990s, when the Republican Party took over Congress, people suspected that Condit might switch parties, but Condit remained a Democrat.

Over the years, he worked on balancing the budget and was vocal on welfare legislation. In 1995, Condit accepted an appointment by then-GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich for a committee on unfunded federal mandates, following Democratic House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt’s refusal to support a bill Condit backed.

By April, 2001, George W. Bush marked 100 days as the US President. The Blue Dog Democrat became one of the major pillars in the new administration's plan to construct bipartisanship.

However, he was soon dragged into the controversy related to the death of Federal Bureau of Prisons intern Chandra Levy. As a result of the controversy, Condit lost the March 5 Democratic primary by a landslide margin to Dennis Cardoza.

On May 11, 2001, The Washington Post first reported the disappearance of Chandra Levy, a 24-year-old Federal Bureau of Prisons intern, who was last seen at a Washington health club on April 30, 2001. Soon, rumors claimed Gary Condit had been in a romantic relationship with Levy.

Apparently, Condit had been approached by Levy’s parents, Robert and Susan Levy, after she disappeared. He had soon pledged $10,000 as reward money for anybody who could find her, stating Levy was a good friend.

For the next 13 months, Condit was in the media spotlight, as investigators continued to look for clues. On May 22, 2002, a man who was walking his dog in Rock Creek Park, an area where Levy often went for jogging, found a skull. Dental records confirmed that the remains were Levy's.

Levy’s parents later claimed Condit had lied about his relationship with Levy and that he could be a key player in the murder investigation. However, Condit had already passed a polygraph test he had taken two and a half months after Levy’s disappearance

In 2010, an undocumented immigrant from El Salvador, named Ingmar Guandique, who was already in jail for sexual assault, was convicted of Levy's murder. Guandique was sentenced to 60 years behind bars for Levy’s murder.

However, in a re-trial in 2016, the conviction was overturned. Subsequently, all charges against Guandique were dropped. However, Levy’s case still remains unsolved.

Gary Condit later moved to Arizona and worked odd jobs. He once owned a Baskin-Robbins franchise, too. After the franchise failed, he moved back to California, where he joined the Sacramento-based J. Blonien law firm, as a registered lobbyist.

He also co-wrote a book on the Levy scandal, named Actual Malice, with attorney Breton Peace. He spoke about the case publicly for the first time 15 years after the actual event, on Dr. Phil McGraw’s show Dr. Phil. Condit maintained that he had no romantic relationship with Levy and had only seen her once at a restaurant and another time in his condo.

Gary Condit met his future wife, Carolyn Berry, in school. She was a pep squad member back then. On January 18, 1967, when they were both 18, Condit and Berry got married.

A 2001 investigation revealed that Condit had provided an incorrect birth date for his marriage license, as back then, Oklahoma needed males under 21 years of age to provide parental consent to marry. Condit claimed he was born in 1942.

They had their first child, Chad, in July 1967. They had their daughter, Cadee, in 1975. In 2012, Chad, intended to run for the House of Representatives as an independent candidate in California's redrawn 10th congressional district. However, he was defeated in the top-two election.