June 25, 2001 -- Missing intern Chandra Levy was distraught over suddenly
losing a job she loved - and cops are also looking for a missing uncashed check,
it emerged yesterday.

As the mystery into Levy's disappearance deepens, authorities are trying to
paint a portrait of the secretive intern's emotional state and the nature of
her relationship with "close friend" Rep. Gary Condit (D-Calif.).

More details about the 24-year-old raven-haired beauty, who disappeared May 1,
emerged yesterday when Newsweek revealed that she inadvertently talked
herself out of a job at the Bureau of Prisons.

Levy told friends and family she hoped to get hired by the bureau full-time
after she received her master's degree in public administration from the
University of Southern California.

But the magazine reports that Levy offhandedly told a personnel officer she
had officially graduated last December. Stunned, the officer told the young
woman the internship was supposed to end four months after graduation, and
she would have to leave.

Distraught at her sudden reversal of fortune, the pretty Modesto, Calif., native
was shaken when a person in power - who may be Condit - didn't intervene to
help her keep her job, the magazine reported. Levy was also said to be heartbroken
over a recent breakup with a boyfriend she was cagey about identifying.

Detectives have become increasingly suspicious of Condit's behavior, and Levy's
parents have said Chandra may have been having an affair with the conservative congressman.

Condit has denied having a romantic liaison with the intern.

Meanwhile, investigators are exploring the possibility the petite intern was
snatched off the street while running an errand in Washington. Levy's family
told cops a relative had given her a check for under $100, and the uncashed
check was missing from the intern's Dupont Circle digs.

Investigators are now creating an hour-by-hour timeline of the day Levy went missing.
They are scouring her e-mails and re-interviewing friends, family and co-workers.

In addition, they are canvassing Washington's Rock Creek Park and have contacted
morgues across the country to make sure no unidentified corpses match the missing woman.

Washington police interviewed Condit for the second time Saturday - with his
lawyer present. He said he last spoke to Levy on April 29, but cops have not
revealed if he provided any new information about Levy's emotional state.

In one homemade video filmed before her disappearance, father Robert Levy
asks Chandra about her congressman friend. And in February, the intern began
wearing a bracelet that was a gift from a secret lover she refused to name.