Condit hunting for libel lawsuits

By MICHAEL DOYLE
BEE WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON -- Ceres Rep. Gary Condit has a new attorney scouring the media on the lookout for material that could be the basis for libel lawsuits. This week, Atlanta-based attorney L. Lin Wood kicked up his search to include a tabloid newspaper company's new book about Condit and Modesto's Chandra Levy. Previously, Wood has secured some high-profile defamation settlements. Now he sees potential targets in the Condit coverage that followed Levy's disappearance in Washington, D.C., in the spring of 2001. Authorities interviewed Condit four times and he eventually stopped denying published reports that he had had an affair with Levy. The former federal intern's remains were found in a District of Columbia park in May 2002; no one has been arrested." I'm looking at the entire range of articles and broadcasts," Wood said Thursday. "Certainly, I am looking at some more than others." One publication he might be looking at is the first book about Condit and Levy, published this week by the National Enquirer's parent company. Condit's wife, Carolyn, already is suing the National Enquirer herself.The new book is titled "Sex, Power & Murder: Chandra Levy and Gary Condit -- The Affair That Shocked America." The $5.99 book's back-cover description promises a "thrilling story of cloak-and-dagger deception, furtive sex, secret codes and even disguises." The 194-page book, described as coming "from the files of the National Enquirer," does not repeat some earlier claims made in the weekly newspaper. Like its sister publications the Globe and the Star, the National Enquirer spent considerable resources and floated various theories while tracking the Condit story last year." The tabloids are clearly a target," Wood said, "and this book will be carefully looked at." Wood said he also would be examining closely the printed and broadcast words of author Dominick Dunne. Dunne used his Vanity Fair magazine perch and cable television appearances to propound certain exotic notions -- involving a Middle Eastern sex slave ring -- about Levy's disappearance. "This is a great, great story," Dunne said on CNN last year. "A terrible tragedy for Chandra's family, but I mean, this will be a great book. This is an amazing story." The tabloid publishers, so far, have stood by their work as legally defensible reporting on a public figure. "It is all run by our lawyers," Valerie Virga, president of the company that published the Condit book, said Monday. This is not the first time Condit has hired a lawyer to seek defamation actions. Last year, during the time when Condit was still denying an affair with Levy, his then-attorney Joseph Cotchett sent warning letters and correction demands to several media organizations. The congressman did not file any lawsuits. Condit went down to defeat in the March 5 Democratic primary. Wood said Condit contacted him about two months ago. The lawyer refused to discuss contingency or billing arrangements. As a public figure, Condit faces a particularly high hurdle in filing any libel lawsuit: The U.S. Supreme Court has said public figures must prove publication of false material, and show it was published knowingly or with "reckless disregard" for whether the material was true or false. That is meant to allow free and uninhibited public debate without fear of inadvertent error, according to the court. "That is a very difficult burden for anyone to overcome," Wood said, "but it is not insurmountable." Earlier this month, another of Wood's clients prevailed in a libel case before the nation's high court. The justices declined to hear an appeal in the case that involved former Atlanta security guard Richard Jewell, who won undisclosed settlements from ABC, NBC and CNN for reporting that he was a suspect in the 1996 Olympic bombing. In a still-pending case involving the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, however, a Georgia court has determined Jewell is a public figure -- and thus more difficult to libel -- because of interviews he gave after the bombing. Carolyn Condit, whose status as a public or private figure is more open to question, has employed different lawyers in her $10 million lawsuit against the National Enquirer. The tabloid claimed in a headline that police believe she "attacked" Levy, with the story elaborating that Condit's wife "flew into a bitter rage and attacked Chandra Levy in a furious confrontation just days before the intern's disappearance." The reference was to a supposed telephone call, but Condit's attorneys claim that she never spoke to Levy. Wood has previously taken on tabloid topics as the lawyer for John and Patsy Ramsey. The parents of murdered 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey have won one undisclosed settlement in a case brought by Wood and are pursuing other lawsuits.

Bee Washington Bureau reporter Michael Doyle can be reached at (202) 383-0006 or mdoyle@mcclatchydc.com.

A tabloid newspaper's new publishing venture this week is testing just how much people still care about Gary Condit and Chandra Levy.

While cable television shows that once were obsessed with the congressman and the missing intern have long since turned away, the National Enquirer's parent company thinks the unsolved mystery merits a book. And with claims of 250,000 advance orders, the company believes its publishing bet has already paid off.

"Chandra was a huge story for our readers," Valerie Virga, president of AMI Books, said Tuesday. "They just seemed to love it. It's a fascinating tale ... that really captured people's imagination and horror."

AMI Books is a division of American Media Inc., the Florida-based company that publishes the National Enquirer, Star and Globe newspapers. The book about Condit and Levy appearing this week is the first of a series of AMI books to be published monthly, delving into some perennial tabloid topics.

Entitled "Sex, Power & Murder: Chandra Levy and Gary Condit - The affair that shocked America," the new book is being distributed through grocery stores and newsstands, as well as bookstores.

Condit has not returned telephone calls from the Bee for more than a year. His remaining staff members likewise declined to discuss the book in which some of them appear, if only briefly, as characters.

Primarily co-authored by two long-time Enquirer reporters, David Wright and Don Gentile, the new 194-page book kicks off a series devoted to scandalous themes. Bearing other titles including "Freak!" and "Divinely Decadent," the tabloid books deploy vivid subtitles and unsubtle themes. These include "the twisted world of Michael Jackson" and the "strange life and loves of Liza Minelli."

The $5.99 book about Condit and Levy promises, on its back cover, a look "inside the seamy secret underbelly of our nation's capital" as well as the "erotic bedroom escapades that make other Washington scandals pale."

As the subtitle implies, the book asserts as fact more than many people will say on the record. Condit has never publicly acknowledged having a sexual affair with the much younger Levy. He's called her simply a "very close" friend, one he first met in his Washington office when he was a 52-year-old congressman whose wife lived in Ceres, and Levy was a 23-year-old Bureau of Prisons intern.

Condit, however, does not deny published reports that he told investigators he was sexually involved with Levy. Defeated in the Democratic primary, Condit is now in the final weeks of his congressional career. Levy's remains were found in Washington's Rock Creek Park in May, but investigators have not charged anyone with her murder.

Neither Condit's loss of power nor the ambiguous state of the investigation should crimp reader interest, the tabloid publishers believe.

"There are certain stories that our readers just can't seem to get enough of," Virga said.

The bulk of the reporting will be familiar to people who've followed the case, though Virga said the writers crafted the kind of sustained narrative not possible in a weekly newspaper. The book is packed with speculations offered by psychologists and profilers.

The book also draws liberally from other reporters' work, with quotes and observations lifted straight from newspapers including the Bee and inserted without either attribution or index.

Though frequently criticized in professional journalism circles, the tabloid papers have previously advanced real news in the Levy case. The Star newspaper, for instance, was the first to report on flight attendant Anne Marie Smith and her claims to have had a running affair with Condit. Condit subsequently accused Smith of trying to take advantage of a tragedy but has not denied the essence of her claim that they were sexually involved.

In other cases, the tabloids' reporting has proven more troublesome.

Condit's wife Carolyn is now suing the National Enquirer for $10 million, in response to a story and headline asserting she "flew into a rage" and "verbally attacked" Levy during a telephone conversation. That claim, which Carolyn Condit vigorously denied, is not repeated in the new book.

(Contact Michael Doyle of the Modesto Bee in California at http://www.modbee.com.)

Now we have Condom Condit.
Had he been forthright and immediately told Chandra's mother during the initial phone call "Yes, I've been boffing that Bimbo, the last time I saw her was "x-day at x-hour" and the last time I had any call from her was "y-day and y-hour" he might have spared both himself and the Levy family from alot of grief.

Had he been frank and forthright with the media and added: Look, I'm known far and wide as Condom Condit both in Washington and Sacramento, so by now you can be assured my wife knows that and I've nothing to worry about some sort of 'exposure'. Chandra was not working in my office so there is no question of coercion. If she had been selected for FBI training our relationship might have continued despite the demands on her time and energy but once she had received her first posting, it would surely have ended by then if not sooner. I'm sorry she appears to be missing and under circumstances that do seem to indicate foul play is involved, but I had nothing to do with it and am fully cooperating with the family and the police.
Then he would have acted both honorably and with candor befitting a public office-holder.

Instead he revealed himself as being dishonest, deceitful, self-centered and totally unconcerned with either his constituents or the public in general.

So here you have it:
Richard Jewell was unappealing but was able to obtain a lawyer when he needed one.
Gary Condit is unappleaing but has been able to obtain a lawyer when he needs one.

I don't see much of a problem with this.

Oh boy - - I see Lin Wood v Dominick Dunne in the future.