A lie detector test has cleared Congressman Gary Condit of any involvement in the disappearance of intern Ms Chandra Levy, his lawyer, Mr Abbe Lowell, claimed to journalists last night.
Mr Lovell said that Mr Condit had, "in the most stressful week of his life", submitted to a test by an independent expert, a former FBI agent, who was regularly used by the police and the FBI for both testing and teaching, whose credentials as an expert were "unassailable". His results would be submitted to the police.
The Assistant Chief of Police, Mr Terrance Gainer, expressed some scepticism about the test but said he would look at the results. Mr Lovell said that the tester had found Mr Condit was "not deceptive in any way" and that in his "no" to three crucial questions he had not varied more than one-hundredth of one per cent from accuracy.
Those questions were: did he have anything to do with the disappearance? did he harm or cause to be harmed Ms Levy? and did he know where she now was? Mr Lovell said that Mr Condit had now done everything he possibly could to help the investigation, from offering a reward to allowing the search of his flat and the taking of a DNA sample, to his willingness to answer police questions. Now the time had come, for Ms Levy's sake he said, for the media to turn its focus elsewhere, perhaps to the 99 other witnesses that the police had identified as having a contribution to make to the investigation.
Mr Condit's decision to submit to the test is likely to relieve some of the pressure on him, although federal investigators were yesterday talking about possible charges of obstructing justice over suggestions he and his lawyers may have asked a second lover to deny their affair in an affidavit. Federal law enforcement officials said they are also interested in other contacts Mr Condit's representatives may have had with potential witnesses in the case. Lie detector evidence is not accepted in the US courts as infallible, although investigators still like to use the polygraph because it is a very effective psychological tool in extracting confessions. An error rate of up to 15 per cent is cited by experts but most will ask whether a guilty Mr Condit would ever have dared to take one.
