Woman: I Was Asked to Lie About Alleged Condit Affair

July 3, 2001 -- A flight attendant who claims she had a 10-month affair with Rep. Gary Condit says a private investigator working for the congressman's lawyer asked her to sign an affidavit stating that they had no relationship.

Anne Marie Smith, a United Airlines flight attendant, told Fox News that the relationship she had with Condit was romantic from the start. But she also said she knew nothing about any relationship he might have had with Chandra Levy, the Washington intern who has been missing since May 1.

She said she never heard of Levy before news broke that she was missing on May 5.

She said that Condit told her she did not need to speak to the FBI, who had begun interviewing people who knew the congressman.

Law enforcement officials told ABCNEWS that Smith's story might not have any direct relevance to the Levy case, but it raises questions about whether the alleged request to sign the affidavit was obstruction of justice.

Condit's attorney in Washington, Abbe Lowell, described the flight attendant's story as craziness and then referred calls to the congressman's California lawyer, Joe Cotchett, who also dismissed the story and then refused to comment further.

‘Potentially Embarrassing’

A highly placed law enforcement source in Washington told ABCNEWS that there have been no new developments in the hunt for Levy.

He said there was no new lead that led them to begin searching landfills, describing the move as a "natural progression" in a missing person case. It just means that police are looking at things they had not looked at thus far under regular procedures.

The source expressed frustration that it's been a couple months since Levy's disappearance and so little progress has been made. He said it wouldbe good to get the case solved for the family's sake.

Smith told Fox that Condit called her soon after the Levy story broke and asked her to keep quiet about their relationship.

"He said, 'You don't want anything — this could be potentially embarrassing for both of us,'" Smith said.

When she talked to him about the FBI questioning her, she said, she told him it was a routine interview and that "they were talking to a lot of people that he knew."

Hiding in Plain Sight

Smith's lawyer, Jim Robinson, said that the person who asked her to sign the affidavit was a private investigator named Don Thornton who worked for Cotchett.

Though she described Condit as a nice man and said she still likes him, she said she decided to go public because she feared for her life and hoped that by coming out with everything "I'll be much safer."

Levy, 24, was last seen on April 30, and her last known communication — an e-mail to her parents in California — was received on May 1.

In the weeks since Levy's disappearance, speculation has centered around her connection to Condit, the Democratic congressman who represents the Northern California district where Levy's family lives. Levy, who had just finished an internship at the Federal Bureau of Prisons, was apparently planning to return home when she disappeared.

In prepared statements, Condit, 53, has called Levy a "good friend." His aides have denied that the married congressman had any romantic relationship with the young woman. Her parents, however, have said they suspect she may have been having an affair with the congressman.