What is Gary Condit's net worth?
Gary Condit is an American politician and businessman who has a net worth of $1 million. Gary Condit is a Democrat who served as a member of the U.S House of Representatives from California's 15th district from September 1989 to January 1993. From January 1993 to January 2003 Condit was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from California's 18th district.
Condit gained attention for his extramarital affair with Chandra Levy after she disappeared in May 2001. He was not forthcoming with investigators about his relationship which led to speculation he was involved with her murder or disappearance. Another man was convicted but that was overturned because of lack of physical evidence and unreliable testimony. After the scandal Condit moved to Arizona and operated two Baskin-Robbins ice cream shops, which ultimately failed. He is now the president of the Phoenix Institute of Desert Agriculture.
Early Life
Gary Condit was born on April 21, 1948 in Salina, Oklahoma to parents Velma Jean Condit and Adrian Burl Condit. His father was a Baptist minister. Condit was raised in Oklahoma and attended Tulsa's Nathan Hale High School. During summers in high school, he worked as a roustabout in Oklahoma's oil fields. In 1967, Condit's father became the pastor of a Baptist church in Ceres, California and the family relocated there. Condit attended Modesto Junior College and later California State University, Stanislaus. He received his B.A. degree in 1972.
Career
In 1972, Condit began his career on the Ceres city council. In 1974, he became the mayor at the age of 25, the youngest mayor in the city's history. He served on the Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors from 1976 to 1982 and then was elected to the California State Assembly.
In 1989, Condit moved up in the political world when he was elected to Congress in a special election after the resignation of House Democratic Whip, Tony Coelho. He was elected to a full term the following year, in 1990. During the general election years of 1992 and 1998, he did not have a Republican challenger for his seat and was later reelected several more times. While in Congress, his most important role was a seat on the House Intelligence Committee, where he was a senior member.
During his time in Congress, Condit was a bit more conservative than other Democrats from California which was typical of politicians who hailed from the Central Valley of the state. He considered himself a Blue Dog Democrat and voted against President Bill Clinton more frequently than other members of his party in the chamber. However, he also took a number of populist progressive positions such as opposing NAFTA despite the fact that his own district's wine industry lobbied for it, voting against the repeal of the Glass-Steagall protections, and voting against the Iraq War and intervention in Kosovo.
In 1998, during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Condit publicly demanded that Clinton "come clean" on his relationship with Lewinsky and was not hesitant to criticize the president. In 2001, following the September 11 attacks, Condit was a member of the House Intelligence Committee. He kept his seat on the committee and was one of a few members of Congress who were cleared to see the most sensitive information relating to the attacks.
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In December 2001, Condit announced he would run for re-election. However, he lost the Democratic primary election in March 2022 to his former aide, Dennis Cardoza. Condit left Congress at the end of his term in January 2003. One of his most notable final acts in Congress took place in July 2002 when he was the sole "nay" vote on a resolution to expel Congressman James Traficant after his conviction on corruption charges. Condit's failure to win reelection is largely thought to be a direct result of chaos and scandal in his personal life.
After his political career was over, Condit moved to Arizona where he operated two Baskin-Robbins ice cream stores with his wife and son. The franchise later failed. In 2012, he was serving as the president of the Phoenix Institute of Desert Agriculture, though the institute dissolved by 2015. He then returned to California where he became a lobbyist with the J. Blonien law firm of Sacramento.
Personal Life
In 1967, at the age of 18, Condit married his high school sweetheart, Carolyn Berry. In 2001, it was revealed that Condit had provided the wrong birth date for his marriage license as Oklahoma at the time required that men under the age of 21 have parental consent to marry. He thus provided his birth year as 1942 rather than 1948. However the couple did marry and later had a son together named Chad.
Chandra Levy Scandal
In 2001, Condit became the center of a scandal when Chandra Levy, a young woman who had been working as an intern in Washington D.C. who was originally from Condit's district, disappeared. The police questioned Condit twice and both times he denied having an extramarital affair with Levy. However, Levy's aunt later went public with conversations she had had with her niece about her relationship with Condit. He then confessed to the affair. At the time it had occurred, Condit was 53 while Levy was 23. Though Condit was not named an official suspect in Levy's disappearance, Levy's family suspected that Condit was withholding information. Levy's remains were not found, despite extensive searching, until May 2002 in a secluded area around Washington D.C. The death was declared a homicide.
Condit was never charged with any crime and is believed to be innocent of any connection to Levy's death. He later sued a writer from "Vanity Fair" who had claimed that he had ordered Levy killed in 2001. The writer settled in 2005. In 2009, Ingmar Guandique was charged with Levy's death. He was found guilty of first-degree murder in 2010 and sentenced to 60 years in prison. However, a judge granted a motion for retrial in 2015 after it was discovered that the only witness against Guandique had previously lied about other testimony. The charges against him were dropped and Levy's death remains unsolved.
