NEW YORK - A threatening letter mailed to Tom Brokaw from New Jersey one week after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks contained the anthrax that infected the NBC news anchor's assistant, authorities said Saturday.

In Florida, five more newspaper employees tested positive for exposure to anthrax, but none showed symptoms of infection. And in Nevada, a letter sent to a Microsoft office also tested positive for the bacteria.

A second NBC employee had possible symptoms of anthrax, including a low-grade fever, swollen lymph nodes and a rash, health officials said.

The employee, who was not identified, was taking antibiotics, said Neal Shapiro, the network's news president. "She's fine," he said.

The NBC letter, postmarked Sept. 18 in Trenton, N.J., tested positive for anthrax, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said. Initially, authorities believed a Sept. 20 letter sent from Florida might have carried the bacteria.

In Nevada, Gov. Kenny Guinn said a third anthrax test on a letter sent from Malaysia to a Microsoft office in Reno came back positive, but added that the risk to public health was "very, very low."

The anthrax scare began last week when a photo editor for The Sun supermarket tabloid in Boca Raton, Fla., died of the inhaled form of the bacteria, the first anthrax death in the United States in 25 years. The American Media Inc. building where Bob Stevens worked was sealed off after anthrax was found on his keyboard.

Two other employees turned out to have anthrax in their nasal passages, but neither has developed the disease. Both are taking antibiotics, and one has returned to work.

The company was notified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Saturday that five employees had shown antibodies of anthrax in their blood, according to Gerald McKelvey, a spokesman for American Media Inc.

"It means they had an exposure," he said. "It doesn't mean they have anthrax."

None of the five were sick or in the hospital, said Michael Kahane, the company's general counsel.

Health officials had been waiting for results of more than 35 anthrax tests checking employees and visitors to the company's headquarters, which investigators in white moon suits continued to search Saturday. About 20 postal employees who handled the company's mail were also awaiting test results.

On Friday, the FBI agent said test results of 965 people who were in the building recently found no new infections.

Investigators also were searching in St. Petersburg, Fla., for the origin of a letter containing a mysterious powder that made its way to NBC's New York newsroom, where Erin O'Connor, 38, was infected with the less aggressive anthrax of the skin.

It was initially believed that letter, received Sept. 25, could have infected O'Connor, but it subsequently tested negative for anthrax. Authorities said Saturday that the Sept. 18 New Jersey letter had tested positive for the bacteria.

The earlier letter was found at the network's Manhattan headquarters when city police and FBI officials searched the offices, said Barry Mawn, head of the FBI's New York office.

The anonymous letter, which bore no return address, contained an unspecified threat and a brown granular substance, Mawn said. Most of it was thrown away, but the letter - one of several threatening ones the network received since the attacks - was retained, he said.

The FBI could not immediately pinpoint where the letter was dropped because Trenton is a regional processing center for southern and central New Jersey, said Special Agent Sandra Carroll, a spokeswoman for the FBI's Newark office.

"There's over 100 different collection boxes or post offices it could have come from," Carroll said. FBI agents were interviewing mail carriers in Trenton on Saturday as part of a joint investigation with postal inspectors, she said.

In Florida, the FBI's hazardous materials team also tested various St. Petersburg post offices for anthrax, said Linda Walker, an inspector with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service in Tampa.

Officials stressed the NBC case was an isolated one. They also said there was no known link to the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon or the far more serious inhaled form that killed the editor in Florida.

Still, spooked New Yorkers scurried to emergency rooms and pharmacies for anthrax tests and prescriptions for the antibiotic Cipro. Some drugstores ran out, or limited the amounts they would sell to customers.

At the Hilltop Pharmacy, a sign warned customers they could get only a five-day supply of 10 Cipro pills.

"We're filling it right now about 75 times more than usual," pharmacist Amy Sidney said.

A letter containing powder also was sent to The New York Times, but the newspaper said Saturday that the white substance in the envelope received by reporter Judith Miller - who co-wrote a recent best seller on bioterrorism - tested negative for anthrax.

Results from additional tests by the CDC were not expected until Tuesday, Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis said.

Miller and about 30 co-workers in the area when the envelope was opened are taking antibiotics, and results of their anthrax tests will be released Monday, the newspaper said.

In Nevada, four Microsoft employees have been tested to date, with the results expected Monday or Tuesday, company spokesman Matt Pilla said.

"If the CDC results are positive for a disease-causing strain, there's still a very low risk for anyone outside the four who had direct contact with the envelope," Pilla said.

An envelope with a powdery substance on the outside was found in the mail at CBS News' Washington bureau on Saturday. The envelope was turned over to the FBI, which was testing the powder for anthrax, CBS News spokeswoman Sandy Genelius.

By Brendan Riley, Associated Press, 10/18/01 

CARSON CITY, Nev. -- Final tests on a letter in a Microsoft office in Reno have come back negative for anthrax, Gov. Kenny Guinn announced Thursday.

Tests performed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found the presence of a bacterium, but ruled out that it was anthrax.

The tests performed by the CDC in Atlanta were requested after initial state tests showed anthrax had contaminated a pornographic picture in a letter at the Microsoft Licensing Inc. office in Reno.

The state Health Division's laboratory had confirmed the presence of anthrax earlier, but forwarded the material to the CDC to determine whether it was dangerous or harmless, vaccine-grade anthrax.

The CDC's initial analysis was negative, but state health officials said the first sample sent to the CDC might have been too diluted and sent another.

Six people exposed to the Microsoft letter have tested negative for the deadly, inhaled version of the disease.

Officials at Microsoft Licensing contacted health officials Oct. 10 over an employee's suspicions about a returned envelope, mailed earlier to a vendor in Malaysia.  Pornographic pictures had been inserted into the envelope, which also contained a check made out to the vendor, who wasn't identified.

The Malaysian government, which along with the FBI is investigating, says it is not clear where the contamination originated.

Deputy Inspector General of Police Jamil Johari was quoted in the New Straits Times newspaper as saying that the letter from Microsoft in Reno was returned to the sender after the addressee in Malaysia could not be contacted.

By ALAN CLENDENNING
The Associated Press
10/20/01 9:14 PM 

NEW YORK (AP) -- A letter mailed to the New York Post has tested positive for anthrax and is similar to anthrax-laced letters sent to NBC anchor Tom Brokaw and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, police said late Saturday. 

The letter addressed to the "Editor" at the Post was postmarked Sept. 18 -- the same day as a contaminated letter sent to Brokaw. The postmark said it came from Trenton, N.J., like the letters to Brokaw and Daschle. The letter to Daschle was postmarked Oct. 9. 

In a news release, Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik and FBI Assistant Director in Charge Barry Mawn said the handwriting on the Post letter is similar to that found on the two other letters. 

A spokeswoman for the Post referred questions to police, who did not immediately return calls for comment. 

Police found the unopened envelope late Friday night during an investigation launched after a Post employee tested positive for the bacteria. The letter contained a small amount of a powdery substance. The letter has been sent to Maryland for testing. 

On Friday, the Post said an employee who opens letters to the editor had been diagnosed with anthrax, the fourth such case connected to news media in the city and one of eight recent anthrax cases nationwide. 

Johanna Huden, an assistant to Editorial Page Editor Bob McManus, has recovered. She wrote a first-person account for the Post's Saturday editions. 

FBI spokesman Joe Valiquette said it has not been determined if the letter is the one that infected Huden. The letter had been put aside by the Post because it had no return address and was not specifically addressed, Valiquette said. 

Also Saturday, authorities said environmental tests of Gov. George Pataki's offices in Manhattan have come up negative for anthrax. 

The tests in the offices were initiated when a sample from one area tested positive in a
preliminary result Wednesday. A more thorough culture test of the sample will take several days, said John Signor, state health department spokesman. 

Signor said 130 to 140 environmental tests had been completed and the work should be finished Sunday. The governor's Manhattan offices have been closed since Wednesday, but could reopen Monday, officials said. 

After the initial test, Pataki said there was a "high probability" that anthrax was in the offices. 

Also Saturday, Brazilian authorities said they found no signs of anthrax in a suspicious letter received at The New York Times' bureau in Rio de Janeiro. 

Two tests on the letter sent to the bureau came back negative, said Paulo Buss, president of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Brazil's leading biochemical and research laboratory. 

Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis confirmed that anthrax was not found on the letter, but said "some contaminant" had been found. More tests were underway to determine what it was. 

The letter was turned over unopened to authorities. It was postmarked Oct. 5 from New York City and did not have a return address. It was received Oct. 16.

Investigators looking for source of anthrax that killed New York woman

By PAUL RECER
AP Science Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — Traces of anthrax were reported Sunday on a package sent from NBC to the New York mayor's office and at a Veterans Affairs' hospital in Washington.

Health investigators were stymied in efforts to find the source of anthrax that killed a New York woman, but experts said they were relieved that no new cases linked to her unique exposure have surfaced.

On Capitol Hill, workers prepared to sterilize the anthrax-contaminated Hart Senate office building with chlorine dioxide gas, but the Longworth House office building was reopening Monday morning for the first time since Oct. 17.

Capitol Police Lt. Dan Nichols said late Sunday all portions of the building will be open except for three sealed off rooms where anthrax has been found.

Reopening of the Longworth leaves only the Hart building closed among major Capitol Hill facilities. A small building housing congressional support personnel also remains closed.

Officials at the Mayo Clinic were to announce Monday a new DNA test that can give a quick answer about any possible anthrax sample.

At the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, 140 health care workers have been vaccinated against smallpox, a precaution that will protect medical workers who would be the first to respond to any outbreak of the highly contagious disease.

Mayor Rudolph Giuliani of New York said “there's no reason to be concerned” about traces of anthrax found on a package containing a videotape sent to his office from the office of NBC anchor Tom Brokaw. The tape contained footage of a White House briefing Sept. 18 in which a Giuliani aide was mentioned.

The mayor said there was no evidence that anyone at City Hall was infected from the package, handled by four or five people. Technicians conducted environmental tests at City Hall on Sunday.

City health officials said the tape was associated with an anthrax-laced letter sent to NBC on Sept. 18 from Trenton, N.J. The tape was sent to a lab for tests on Oct. 23; the results came back Saturday.

“We feel pretty confident that it was cross-contaminated,” said city Health Department spokeswoman Sandra Mullin. “This not a new contamination.”

Trace amounts of anthrax also were found in the mail room of the Veterans Affairs Medical center, based on tests completed Saturday by the CDC.

Veterans Affairs spokesman Phil Budahn said five mail room employees have been on antibiotics since Oct. 25 as a precaution. He said the hospital's 250 patients would be monitored, but it was thought unlikely that anthrax could have spread beyond the mail room, which closed Wednesday for cleaning.

The medical center received mail from Brentwood, a Washington postal center that processed an anthrax-laced envelope delivered to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle's office. A number of other Washington area mailrooms that receive mail from Brentwood have showed traces of contamination, all believed to have come from the Brentwood facility.

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Sunday that the source of the spores that caused the death last week by inhalation anthrax of Kathy T. Nguyen in New York was unknown.

Nguyen died a short time after being admitted to a hospital. She was not able to be interviewed and investigators have not been able to link her infection to the postal service or to mail handling.

Early anthrax tests at her Bronx apartment and at the hospital where she worked were negative. CDC investigators are widening the effort to include other places where she might have contracted the spores.

“Every possible lead is being followed,” said Dr. Jeffrey Koplan, head of the CDC. He said the investigation has been difficult because Nguyen lived alone.

Fauci said that the lack of a known postal connection suggests that Nguyen may have gotten the disease in a different way. He said it is possible that hers is a “sentinel case in a new and evolving pattern.”

If that were true, there should have been similar cases by now, Fauci said on CBS' “Face the Nation.” Investigators are checking her contacts to find if there are other cases, but none have been found.

“That's the good news,” he said. “The bad news is that we still have a mystery of how this happened.

Workers prepared to sterilize the Hart building, where anthrax hot spots were found on four floors after a letter was opened in Daschle's office.

Officials announced last week a proposal to fumigate the nine-story building with chlorine dioxide gas. The gas would kill any lingering anthrax spores — along with rats, mice and cockroaches — without harming papers, files and art work.

While the vaccination of the CDC moves ahead, there are no plans to inoculate all Americans, said the CDC's head, Dr. Jeffrey Koplan.

Federal health officials have said that four drug companies are studying ways to manufacture new smallpox vaccine and build up the nation's stockpile to about 300 million, enough for every American.

Since the anthrax crisis began last month, 10 Americans have developed inhaled anthrax, the most serious form of the disease; Nguyen was the fourth to die.

Experts offer competing theories for source of anthrax: Was it New Jersey basement or Iraq? 

NEW YORK (AP) — Bioterrorism experts say the teaspoonful of powdered anthrax spores sent to Sen. Tom Daschle's office could have come from an Iraqi weapons laboratory or a New Jersey basement. 

They say it could have been made by experienced biological weapons scientists or educated amateurs with access to special equipment, techniques and advice. 

More than six weeks after anthrax-tainted letters began arriving, federal authorities say they still know almost nothing about where the deadly powder comes from or who cooked it up. 

"We don't know its origin," Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge said Wednesday. "We have not ruled out whether this was an act of an individual or a collective act, whether it was a domestic source or a foreign source." 

And the experts offer competing theories about the attacker — someone who did an excellent job of covering the tracks. 

At least three anthrax-laced letters have been mailed since the Sept. 11 attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon. But the one opened in Daschle's office on Oct. 15 has attracted the most attention from biowarfare experts.

Stunned officials used words like "weaponized" and "potent" to describe the powder in the hours after it wafted out of an envelope addressed to Daschle in crude block letters. Later, a rigorous analysis by the U.S. Army Research Institute of Infectious Disease at Fort Detrick, Md., found that the powdered anthrax in the Daschle letter was the perfect size to float in the air and lodge in the lungs. The powder had also been mixed with silica, a mineral that keeps the particles from clumping together. 

Because of those characteristics Army scientists settled on "professionally done" rather than "weaponized" as the best way to describe the powder, Gen. John S. Parker told a Senate subcommittee Oct. 31. 

"From what we know about this powder it could have been made by anybody," said Richard H. Ebright, a microbiologist and bioterrorism expert at Rutgers University. 

Still, whoever did make it knew more than a little bit about germ weapons, said Jonathan B. Tucker, a biowarfare expert at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in Washington, D.C. 

"You're talking invisibly small particles," Tucker said. "It does require specialized equipment and know-how." 

The terrorists were smart enough to use a common but deadly strain of anthrax, the Ames strain. That strain has never been turned into a weapon by a major state-sponsored biological weapons program, although Iraq reportedly sought to obtain it in the late 1980s. 

Iraq has used a strain known as Vollum in its anthrax weapons; the United States used a derivative of the same strain. The Soviet Union created its own genetically engineered anthrax strain far deadlier than any natural form. 

Whoever made the weapon sent to Daschle and the news media did not genetically endow the strain with exceptional virulence or resistance to antibiotics, which would have been strong evidence of involvement by a sophisticated state-sponsored weapons program. 

In addition to knowledge, it probably took a well-constructed laboratory to produce the high-quality powder that was sent to Daschle's office, said former United Nations weapons inspector Richard Spertzel. 

"I would not envision it being done in somebody's garage or basement," said Spertzel, who visited Iraq 40 times during his career as a weapons inspector.  "You would need a small laboratory and you would have to know exactly what you're doing." 

If it were set up in a populated area, a clandestine anthrax factory would have to be outfitted with sophisticated containment systems. Without them, the spores would dissipate through the neighborhood just as easily as they did the nation's mail system, causing an anthrax outbreak. 

"The quality of that powder, you start messing around with that without the appropriate safety conditions, you're going to contaminate everything," Spertzel said. 

He believes a foreign country is the source of the anthrax in the Daschle letter, most likely Iraq. 

But Ebright thinks the powder was produced much closer to its target. 

After stealing or purchasing anthrax bacteria from any of hundreds of labs worldwide, Ebright said, the attacker could have outfitted a bioweapons laboratory without straying more than a few miles from the Trenton location where the letters to Daschle, NBC and the New York Post were mailed. 

The equipment needed to create a liquid broth of anthrax spores can be purchased by mail from any laboratory supply house, and the process is straightforward enough to be performed by anybody with minimal microbiology training. 

But to dry that brew into a fine powder of pure spores requires knowledge that few people in the world possess and specialized processing equipment, including spray dryers and grinders. In New Jersey, a region crowded with pharmaceutical and food processing plants, at least the equipment is easy to find. 

During the heyday of its biological weapons program, Iraq bought two spray dryers, commonly used in food processing. 

A scaled-down version of the spray dryers Iraq purchased could be bought used for about $30,000, according to a New Jersey dealer. Grinding equipment to mill the dried anthrax powder into smaller, more deadly grains would cost another $10,000 to $15,000. 

"I continue to believe the most likely prospect is that it was produced by a single person or a small group of people locally," Ebright said. 

"By locally I mean New Jersey." 

Ebright argues that one or two biological weapons experts could have visited New Jersey long before Sept. 11, imparted their rarified knowledge to a few local operatives, then left without ever being noticed. 

Public health investigators may be thinking along the same lines. They are probing every person and place that Kathy Nguyen, the most recent person to die from inhalation anthrax, encountered in the days before she got sick. 

Nguyen began to feel ill 16 days after the last known anthrax letter — the one stamped Oct. 9 and sent to Daschle — was postmarked. But most other victims got sick about a week after their exposures. That discrepancy has led investigators to suspect that Nguyen was not infected by tainted mail, but by some other source that she encountered in her daily routine. 

"She may have been walking by the wrong place at the wrong time," Spertzel said. "I wouldn't be surprised if somebody was filling the letters and she walked by outside."

Inventor of anthrax process says spores will not be `smoking gun' to identify who mailed killer letters
 

By PAUL RECER
AP Science Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The scientist who helped the United States refine anthrax and turn it into a weapon says the bacteria spores used in the recent attacks could have been processed in a variety of ways, making it impossible to trace their source.

“You can process the stuff in so many different ways, I don't think that it will be the smoking gun,” William C. Patrick III said Tuesday in an interview with The Associated Press.

Patrick, who holds patents for techniques used to make weapons-grade anthrax, said that the type of spores mailed to the offices of Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., and Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., could have been processed in a crude laboratory “as long as you are dealing with small quantities of material.”

He said anthrax can be cultured on many different growth mediums and that there are many ways to purify and dry it.

Patrick led the Army's biological weapons program at Fort Detrick, Md., until the program ended in 1969. Since then, he has worked as an adviser and consultant on biological warfare for the Defense Department. In 1998, he taught scientists at the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah how to turn wet clusters of bacteria spores into a dry powder, according to The Washington Post.

That technology is not difficult, Patrick said Tuesday. He said the key to turning anthrax into a weapon is the genetic strain of the microbe.

“It is all in the strain,” he said. “If you have poor strain you're not going to make a good product.”

The strain of anthrax used in the letters mailed to media offices in New York and in Florida has been identified as Ames, a strain that was used in Defense Department testing.

Patrick said that spores mailed to the senators offices are “one step removed from weapons grade.”

“It has small particles, with good concentration, (but) it is electrostatic (carries an electrical charge),” said Patrick. 

To make the mailed spores suitable for military weapons, the electrical charge would have to be removed. The electrical charge helps make the spore become airborne at the slightest puff of air.

Investigators have said the anthrax spores in the letters sent to the senators' offices were so charged that they tended to jump off microscope slides and fly about the chamber where they were being examined.

Patrick said the same thing would have happened to anyone who made spores for the anthrax-by-letter attacks.  “It would have been flying all over the room,” he said, with up to half the material lost.

If the processing room had a window to the outside, he said, “You could get people infected if they were just passing that window.”

A person making the spores in a home laboratory, said Patrick, could have protected themselves by wearing a special, easily purchased mask and by taking an antibiotic to prevent infection. But the process still would have contaminated the room where the work was done, he said.

Patrick said to turn anthrax into a weapon would involve mixing a cluster of spores with a liquid compound that would cause the individual spores to separate and stay apart.

“How you treat the liquid material determines what the particle size (of the spores) is going to be and what the concentration will be,” he said.

Drying the wet spores “is not a technically demanding task,” he said. “You can dry it in many ways — even with a heat lamp.  “If you purify the material and dried by a vacuum drum or by spray drying or by freeze drying, the material will be the same,” said Patrick.

He said the spores would bear chemical traces of the material used in the wetting compound. Asked about a report that the spores in the senators' offices bore traces of silica, a drying agent, Patrick said: “I am not going to discuss silica, either the presence or the absence of it.”

Another anthrax expert, who asked not to be identified, said the characteristics of the spores found in the senators' offices suggest the material was spray-dried. This means that the wet spores would have been sprayed into a drying chamber that absorbed the moisture and trapped the dry spores which could then be packaged.

Patrick said a person making an anthrax weapon could store the material at room temperature in a wide-mouthed glass vessel with a screw-on lid called a biological jar. He said the lid could then be taped and the material stored in an ordinary cabinet.

Postal Inspectors investigate dying worker's 911 call about a tainted letter
 

WASHINGTON (AP) — The dying words of a Washington postal worker are prompting inspectors to probe whether a central post office handled a letter containing anthrax that, so far, investigators had not known existed. 

Thomas Morris Jr. told 911 operators hours before he died of inhaled anthrax that he thought he had the disease — despite a doctor's dismissal — and recalled a co-worker handling a powder-containing letter a week earlier.

"My breathing is very, very labored," Morris said on the 911 tape. "I don't know if I have been, but I suspect that I might have been exposed to anthrax." 

Morris, 55, was one of two Washington postal workers who died of inhaled anthrax last month, setting off a massive investigation that has closed contaminated post offices and put thousands of workers on protective antibiotics. 

Both men worked at the Brentwood mail processing facility, which processed the anthrax-tainted letter Senate Majority Leader Thomas Daschle, D-S.D., had received a week before Morris' 911 call. 

Daschle's letter was sealed with tape. Until the Washington postal deaths, medical authorities hadn't thought that enough anthrax could escape a sealed letter to harm — but nor did they have, until now, real reason to suspect another letter had triggered the Brentwood illnesses. 

During his 911 call, Morris was calm but breathing laboriously as he described a co-worker finding an envelope containing powder. He said he hadn't handled the envelope but had been nearby. 

"I couldn't even find out if the stuff was or it wasn't" anthrax, he said. "I was told that it wasn't, but I have a tendency not to believe these people." 

"We don't know for certain what he is talking about," said Deborah Willhite, a Postal Service senior vice president. 

Inspectors began interviewing Morris' co-workers Wednesday to try to reconstruct the event. That is difficult because they don't have access to work records inside Brentwood, which is sealed awaiting decontamination.

"I'm not downplaying what Mr. Morris experienced because we don't know for sure, but it could or could not be a significant lead," Willhite said, noting that post offices routinely handle damaged mail containing sugar or other innocuous substances. "We just simply won't know until we can reconstruct what went on at that point in time." 

Three days before his death, Morris went to a doctor, who dismissed the anthrax worry. 

"The symptoms that I have had are what was described to me in a letter that they put out, almost to a tee," Morris told 911 operators, who called for an ambulance after he described the envelope incident.  "The doctor thought that it was just a virus or something so we went with that and I was taking Tylenol for the achiness. Except the shortness of breath now, I don't know, that's consistent with the anthrax." 

Today, no doctor in America would assume a postal worker who claimed to have had a possible anthrax exposure was suffering benign symptoms, said Dr. Ivan Walks, Washington's health director. But at the time Morris fell ill, officials had no reason to be so suspicious. 

"To have that tape ... lets us all know just how much different the world would be if we had known three weeks ago what we know now," Walks said. "Anyone looking at that transcript and using what we know now to judge either his doctor or his co-workers is being unfair."

FBI Examining Anthrax Link at Rutgers

By SHEILA HOTCHKIN, Associated Press Writer 

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - FBI (news - web sites) agents examined Rutgers University photocopying machines last week, looking for links to four anthrax-tainted letters mailed from central New Jersey. 

Two agents arrived Friday at the Waksman Institute of Microbiology, a Rutgers affiliate in Piscataway, and asked protein biochemist Richard H. Ebright for the access code needed to operate the photocopiers. 

 ``I asked whether it was related to the (anthrax) investigation,'' he said in a phone interview Tuesday. ``The male investigator said, `We can't leave any stones unturned so we're turning over stones,' or something to that effect.'' 

The agents spent about 10 minutes at each Waksman Institute photocopier, making copies and slipping them into a portfolio or large envelope, Ebright said. 

He said agents tested photocopiers in other buildings, but he did not know which ones or how many machines. 

``It's obviously the geographic link,'' Ebright said. ``The letters were mailed from this state, not more than 30 miles from this location.'' 

Rutgers spokeswoman Sandra Lanman said Tuesday that it is ``the university's policy is not to comment on investigations by outside agencies.'' 

No anthrax research is conducted at Rutgers, Lanman said. 

FBI spokeswoman Sherri Evanina would not comment Tuesday on the Rutgers visit or say whether similar tests were conducted elsewhere. 

``Of course the investigation is ongoing into who sent the anthrax letters,'' Evanina said. ``We're pursuing all possible leads.''

Experts say photocopiers leave subtle clues on paper that can narrow the search for where copying was done. The makeup of ink also can provide clues. 

At least four anthrax-laced letters passed through a Trenton-area mail facility. Two, addressed to NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw and the New York Post, were postmarked Sept. 18. Two others were postmarked Oct. 9 and mailed to Sens. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. All four had block letters and used the date 09-11-01. 

The letters to Brokaw and the Post appeared to be photocopies and the Daschle and Leahy letters also appeared identical.

FBI Reportedly Has Anthrax Suspect

WASHINGTON (AP) - The FBI (news - web sites) reportedly has a chief suspect in its anthrax  investigation. 

The Washington Times reports federal authorities are looking at a former U.S. scientist. They believe the unidentified scientist learned how to make a weapons-grade form of the deadly bacteria at a government laboratory. 

The paper cites law enforcement and other sources as saying authorities are targeting the scientist after interviewing more than 300 people tied to the government's anthrax program. 

Five people ended up dying after anthrax was found in letters sent to Florida, New York, Connecticut and Washington last fall. 

Sources tell the newspaper the FBI has known for more than three months the person responsible for sending the letters was a U.S. citizen. 

The sources also say FBI agents have interviewed the suspect several times and have searched his house. They say he now works as a contractor in the Washington area. 

Sources say he was fired twice from government jobs and had reportedly made a threat to use anthrax following the Sept. 11 attacks.

FBI Probing Several Anthrax Suspects

By TED BRIDIS, Associated Press Writer 

WASHINGTON (AP) - Months after anthrax-tainted letters killed five people and sickened more than a dozen, the FBI (news - web sites) said Monday that its investigators do not have a prime suspect despite conducting hundreds of interviews in the case. 

``There is no prime suspect in this case at this time,'' spokesman Bill Carter said. 

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer (news - web sites) said there are several suspects and the FBI has not narrowed that list down to one. ``I wish it were that easy and that simple right now,'' he said. 

President Bush (news - web sites) wants the case resolved quickly, Fleischer said, but also wants the FBI to take its time and ``build a case that would stand in court, that is thorough, that is conclusive.'' 

The FBI - renowned for its behavioral profiles of criminal suspects - does have some clues about the suspected anthrax-mailer, according to an earlier letter from the lead FBI investigator to a group of scientists. 

Van Harp, assistant director of the bureau's Washington office, wrote that the FBI believes that a single person, with experience working in a laboratory, is behind the mailings. Harp described this person as having ``a clear, rational thought process and appears to be very organized in the production and mailing of these letters.'' 

Fleischer said the source of the anthrax definitely was domestic, and the block handwriting on the letters seemed ``chosen by design'' to throw off investigators. 

Harp also said the FBI believes that, because the mailed anthrax was of the so-called ``Ames strain'' of Bacillus anthracis, the suspect probably has or had legitimate access to biological agents in a laboratory. Harp also described the suspect as ``standoffish'' and preferring to work alone rather than in groups. 

``It is possible this person used off-hours in a laboratory or may have even established an improvised or concealed facility comprised of sufficient equipment to produce the anthrax,'' Harp said. 

 Harp's description was in a letter sent to the Washington-based American Association for Microbiology, which published the letter Feb. 1 on its Web site. 

``It is very likely that one or more of you know this individual,'' Harp wrote to the group's members. 

Thu Feb 28, 1:07 PM ET 

WASHINGTON - Federal authorities have subpoenaed documents and anthrax samples from the nation's scientific laboratories in their hunt for the origin of the anthrax used in last year's mail attacks.

Officials believe the attacks, which killed five people and sickened 13, were the work of a scientist who may have obtained the spores from one of a dozen labs that have the Ames strain on hand. They hope to narrow the source through complex genetic analysis now under way.

Subpoenas issued this week also sought documents to help the FBI piece together the movement of anthrax around the country. Labs were asked to detail where and when they got their anthrax samples and to identify labs to which they sent samples.

At least one researcher, the dean of Iowa State University's College of Veterinary Medicine, said he received a subpoena about a month ago.  Norman Cheville said authorities sought information about "a number of issues, largely dealing with anthrax strains that we've had over the years."

Since 1997, labs have been required to notify the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention when transferring anthrax and other hazardous agents. But experts say the law has not been enforced rigidly, and CDC officials have no way to know when the law is ignored.

The FBI did not say Wednesday how many research facilities received subpoenas, but it defended the delay between the attacks, which began five months ago, and its subpoenas this week.

The FBI was mindful of the need to document each transfer of material that could become evidence in a criminal procedure, said Van Harp, assistant director of the bureau's Washington office.

"Even common evidence such as guns or drugs requires stringent chain-of-custody procedures. Because of the serious health risk and potential for danger, anthrax presents unprecedented evidentiary and technological challenges," Harp said in a statement.

He said the FBI consulted with experts to determine a consistent, scientifically valid method for researchers to collect the samples of any Ames strain within their labs and to send them safely back to investigators. That process occurred "only after several months of diligent planning," Harp said.

Two pages described in detail what material the FBI wanted and how to collect it and instructed researchers to send the anthrax via "appropriate priority overnight delivery."

The subpoenas were issued by the U.S. attorney's office in Washington.

Federal investigators have kept close watch on a handful of scientists who currently or previously worked for U.S. labs or contractors who worked on the U.S. anthrax programs, officials said.

The FBI believes the anthrax letters were the work of a single scientist, and some of the scientists fit aspects of the agency profile of the likely attacker, the officials said.

But no single suspect has emerged, and some scientists under scrutiny have passed lie detector tests, officials said.

Fri Mar 1, 5:14 PM ET 

By TED BRIDIS, Associated Press Writer 

WASHINGTON - U.S. investigators have not identified which of the nation's research laboratories may have been the source of the anthrax mailed last fall to media and government offices along the East Coast, FBI (news - web sites) Director Robert Mueller said Friday.

Mueller's disclosure that the FBI hasn't traced the anthrax, despite months of efforts by scientists to determine its genetic fingerprints, suggested another unsuccessful avenue in the inquiry. Five people died after exposure to the anthrax.

The FBI acknowledged earlier this week that its agents have not narrowed the case to a single suspect or group of suspects. Some scientists under scrutiny have passed lie-detector tests.

"We are not focused on one facility or a series of facilities," Mueller said Friday, meeting with reporters in a wide-ranging interview at FBI headquarters. "The investigation is going in a number of different directions."

Knowing where the fatal anthrax originated is considered an important step in tying a suspect to the attacks. FBI officials have said they believe the person who sent the anthrax is probably a male in the United States with experience working in a lab and with legitimate access to biological agents.

Still, Mueller indicated he was satisifed with the pace of the anthrax investigation, partly because he said he appreciated the painstaking scientific work in tracing the bioterrorism attacks. He cautioned that the FBI was being careful to make sure that the criminal case it was building could withstand any legal challenges in a courtroom.

"Why I am satisified comes from an understanding of the problems we've had to overcome," Mueller said, adding that FBI investigators safely found and retrieved one anthrax-tainted letter from within 250 barrels of U.S. mail on Capitol Hill. "We have to be in a position to prosecute this person in a court."

Mueller also said it has been difficult for the FBI to find experts for advice on anthrax. "It is not a simple matter to pull together the requesite expertise," he said.

The FBI also confirmed this week that federal prosecutors have sent formal demands for documents and anthrax samples to research labs across the country. Defending the delay between the attacks that began five months ago and its recent subpoenas, the FBI said it needed the time "for diligent planning and coordination to address the unique legal, scientific and health issues." The subpoenas instructed labs to send the anthrax by priority overnight mail to an Army lab at Fort Detrick, Md., that is working with the FBI.

Mueller also praised as "exceptionally successful" the U.S. anti-terrorism campaign overseas, saying that it has substantially disrupted al-Qaida operations even as he cautioned Americans to remain on high alert.

Mueller's remarks about the success of anti-terrorism efforts overseas followed comments from Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle that the U.S. war on terrorism "will have failed" unless America tracks down top al-Qaida leaders. Separately, Sen. Robert Byrd (news), D-W.Va., complained this week "there's no end in sight" to the nation's involvement in Afghanistan (news - web sites).

The FBI director also said:

Unspecified threats to the Olympics in Salt Lake City were "dealt with appropriately under the circumstances." Mueller declined to provide details of the threats but said none was "imminent, substantial and corroborated."

Authorities in Pakistan are cooperating with the FBI in looking into the kidnapping and killing of Wall Street Journal Daniel Pearl. "All of us were tremendously upset to learn that he was killed, period, but also that he was killed in such a brutal fashion," Mueller said.

Use of the FBI's Internet surveillance system, formerly known as "Carnivore," has "diminished substantially" because commercial Internet providers have improved their own ability to give the FBI information about their customers' online activities.

ATLANTA - The 94-year-old Connecticut woman who died of inhalation anthrax last fall may have been infected by ripping her junk mail in half, releasing deadly spores into the air, health officials said.

Investigators have never given a conclusive explanation for Ottilie Lundgren's death Nov. 21, one of five since anthrax-laden letters were mailed to media and political offices in the fall. But they have long suspected cross-contamination of her mail.

About 80 percent of Lundgren's mail was bulk delivery, some of which passed through the same Trenton, New Jersey, postal facility that handled contaminated letters sent to Sens. Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy, said Connecticut's state epidemiologist Dr. James Hadler.

Lundgren's habit of tearing junk mail in half before discarding it may have released enough spores into the air to infect her, Hadler said.

Health officials do not know precisely how many anthrax spores must be inhaled to cause a deadly infection. But they have said the elderly and people with weak immune systems may be more vulnerable.

Testing on 449 samples from Lundgren's home and places she visited turned up no anthrax spores.

Connecticut health officials reported the junk-mail theory at an infectious-disease conference held by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (news - web sites). The conference concluded Wednesday.

By ERIN McCLAM, Associated Press Writer 

ATLANTA - A Texas laboratory worker who contracted skin anthrax last month probably got it because he was not wearing gloves when he handled vials of spores collected from last fall's mail attacks, the government said Thursday.

The worker handled the spores a day after he had cut his jaw while shaving, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (news - web sites) reported. He then apparently touched his face and developed an anthrax sore on his jaw.

The man was put on antibiotics and is recovering.

It was the first known anthrax case in the United States since the anthrax-by-mail attacks that killed five people and sickened 13 more.

None of the 40 workers at the lab had been vaccinated against anthrax, the CDC said.

The CDC has not identified the worker or the lab.

The infection apparently happened March 1 as the worker was moving vials from a cabinet into a freezer, the CDC said. He was not wearing gloves, contrary to federal health recommendations, the agency said.

Over the next few days, the shaving cut became larger and the man reported swelling on his neck and a low-grade fever. He spent five days in the hospital.

The CDC said the case highlights the need for workers who regularly handle anthrax specimens to be vaccinated against the disease. Workers at many anthrax labs already are.

The private laboratory was one of several the CDC contracted with to work through a backlog of samples collected during the peak of the anthrax attacks.

 By Associated Press, 4/21/2002 15:26 

WALLINGFORD, Conn. (AP) The Wallingford postal sorting center was retested Sunday for signs of anthrax, months after tests turned up positive for the deadly bacteria. 

About 3 million spores were found late last year during an investigation into the anthrax death of a 94-year-old Ottilie Lundgren of Oxford. 

The Wallingford center process mail for Oxford and surrounding towns. 

Workers were allowed to take a vacation day or work at another facility during the sampling, which was conducted by a licensed contractor. 

Postal officials said Sunday's testing of ceilings and ducts was done as a precaution. Also, the center's ceiling is scheduled to be cleaned soon and postal officials want to ensure the area is safe before the cleanup work begins. 

The state Department of Public Health will process the samples and results are due back in four to five days, said officials. 

Investigators suspect Lundgren contracted the disease through cross-contamination in the mail. She died Nov. 21. 

WALLINGFORD, Conn. (AP) - Anthrax spores have been found for a second time at a postal sorting center that serves a large portion of Connecticut, including the town where a 94-year-old woman died of inhalation anthrax, officials said.

Three of 103 samples taken at 71 locations inside the Southern Connecticut Processing & Distribution Center tested positive for anthrax, state Department of Health spokesman William Gerrish said.

"What we feel is that these probably represent residual spores from contamination occurring last October," Gerrish said Thursday. The contaminated sorting machines were cleaned after the initial outbreak.

The Wallingford facility was tested on Sunday and the positive samples were found in the ceiling above three of the four sorting machines that were contaminated last fall, officials said.

About 3 million spores were found in the complex last year during the investigation into the Nov. 21 death of Ottilie Lundgren of nearby Oxford, who died of inhalation anthrax.

The Postal Service said in a news release that the samples were taken prior to a routine cleaning of the ceiling.

Investigators believe Lundgren inhaled anthrax spores, perhaps by ripping up junk mail that had passed through the Wallingford center, although testing of her home found no traces of anthrax.

The Wallingford postal center handle about 3 million pieces of mail daily headed for ZIP codes in New Haven, Middlesex and New London counties.

Nationwide, five people died following the mailing of anthrax-tainted letters from New Jersey.

By JOHN J. LUMPKIN, Associated Press Writer 

WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. investigators no longer believe suicide hijacker Mohammed Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence agent in Europe last year, eliminating the only known link between Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s government and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

American and Czech officials had believed the meetings between Atta, the alleged ringleader of the 19 hijackers, and Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir Al-Ani, an Iraqi diplomat widely believed to be an intelligence agent, took place in Prague in April 2001.

Some observers said the meetings suggested Iraq's complicity in the Sept. 11 attacks — providing the United States with a reason to attack Saddam. The Iraqi government denied the meetings ever occurred, and charged the reports were fabricated to justify making Iraq a target in the U.S.-led war on terror.

U.S. officials said the content of the alleged meetings was never definitively laid out. Some Czech officials said Atta had contacted Al-Ani, who was later expelled from the Czech Republic, to discuss an attack on the Prague building that serves as the headquarters for U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

But Czech authorities have since retracted their statements to the U.S. government, saying that no such meetings took place. Atta is now believed to have been in the United States during the time he was supposed to have been meeting with Al-Ani, said a U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

As recently as December, however, Czech and U.S. authorities said they believed the meetings took place. But Czech media questioned the claim, and President Vaclav Havel acknowledged the meetings may not have occurred.

In addition to being chief among the 19 hijackers, Mohammed Atta also led an al-Qaida cell based in Hamburg, Germany, which included two other hijackers and several more alleged co-conspirators who have not been captured.

U.S. officials have established numerous ties between the hijackers and al-Qaida, but none to Iraq's government — and not for a lack of trying. Similar efforts to tie bin Laden to Hussein have yielded few ties. Officials say while opposing the United States is a common goal, bin Laden's motivations are religious, while Hussein's are secular.

By JOHN SOLOMON
The Associated Press
5/3/02 10:11 AM

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Two months before the suicide hijackings, an FBI agent in Arizona alerted Washington headquarters that several Middle Easterners were training at a U.S. aviation school and recommended contacting other schools nationwide where Arabs might be studying. 

"FBIHQ should discuss this matter with other elements of the U.S. intelligence community and task the community for any information that supports Phoenix's suspicions," the agent recommended in the memo obtained by The Associated Press. 

The FBI sent the intelligence to its terrorism experts in Washington and New York for analysis and had begun discussing conducting a nationwide canvass of flight schools when the Sept. 11 tragedies occurred, officials told AP.

At least one leader of the 19 hijackers, Hani Hanjour, received flight training in Arizona in 2001 but his name had not surfaced in the FBI intelligence from Arizona, the officials said. 

None of the Middle Eastern men identified by the Arizona counterterrorism agents or any information contained in their July 2001 memo pointed to the suicide plot that leveled the World Trade Center and killed thousands in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, officials said. 

"None of the people identified by Phoenix are connected to the Sept. 11 attacks," FBI Assistant Director John Collingwood said Thursday night. 

"The Phoenix communication went to appropriate operational agents and analysts but it did not lead to uncovering the impending attacks," Collingwood said. 

Officials said FBI counterterrorism agents in Phoenix were suspicious why several Arab men were seeking airport operations, security information and pilot training. The agents recommended that the FBI begin alerting local offices when Middle Easterners sought visas for training at local aeronautical schools. 

"FBIHQ should consider seeking the necessary authority to obtain visa information from the USDOS (State Department) on individuals obtaining visas to attend these types of schools and notify the appropriate FBI field office when these individuals are scheduled to arrive in their area of responsibility," the memo said. 

The FBI's concerns about the U.S. flight schools is the latest revelation about information, much of it sketchy, that the government possessed before Sept. 11 concerning the possibility of terrorism in the skies. For example: 

--AP reported last month that Filipino authorities alerted the FBI as early as 1995 that several Middle Eastern pilots were training at American flight schools and at least one had proposed hijacking a commercial jet and crashing it into federal buildings. 

--A month after the 2001 memo from Arizona to FBI headquarters, FBI agents in Minnesota arrested a French citizen of Moroccan descent, Zacarias Moussaoui, after a flight school instructor became suspicious of his desire to learn to fly a commercial jet. 

Moussaoui has since emerged as the single most important defendant in the post-Sept. 11 terrorism investigation, charged with conspiring with the hijackers and Osama bin Laden to kill thousands of Americans. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. 

--About the same time as the Phoenix memo and Moussaoui's arrest, U.S. intelligence issued a late summer warning that there was heightened risk of a terrorist attack on Americans, possibly even on U.S. soil, officials have said. 

Law enforcement officials said in retrospect the FBI believes it should have accelerated the suggested check of U.S. flight schools after Moussaoui's arrest but does not believe it would have led to the hijackers. 

FBI officials said a supervisory agent in Arizona wrote a several-page memo to FBI headquarters in July 2001 laying out information his counterterrorism team had developed in an unrelated investigation. A portion of the memo dealt with an Arizona flight school, officials said. 

The memo indicated agents were suspicious about why several nonresident Arab men were seeking training at a commercial aeronautical school in Prescott, Ariz. 

Collingwood said the men "were enrolled in various aspects of civil aviation engineering, airport operations and pilot training." The agents were particularly concerned that some were attempting to learn about airport security operations, officials said.

The Phoenix memo urged FBI headquarters to assemble a list of U.S. aviation academies and to instruct field offices across the country to make "appropriate liaison" with their local schools where other Middle Easterners might be training. 

The information was shared with intelligence analysts who monitored terrorist threats and was even sent to the FBI office in New York that had the most experience with terrorism cases, officials said. 

After the suicide attacks, the FBI quickly descended upon flight schools nationwide, identifying academies in Florida, Arizona and elsewhere where the leaders of the 19 hijackers trained. 

Hanjour, believed to have piloted the jetliner that crashed into the Pentagon, trained at a flight academy in Phoenix between January and March 2001, the government has said in court documents. 

Some witnesses have also said they believe another hijacker, Ziad Samir Jarrah, trained on an Arizona flight simulator in the months before the attacks. But the FBI has no evidence that either man was connected to the Prescott school identified in the July 2001 memo, officials said. 

The FBI also investigated whether an Algerian pilot who spent time in Arizona may have helped train the hijackers before leaving the United States before the attacks. 

That man, Lotfi Raissi, was later apprehended in Britain, but U.S. officials failed to persuade a court there to extradite him to the United States. Law enforcement officials say their suspicions about his connections to the hijackers have since fizzled. 

An Arizona businessman who assisted U.S. intelligence said he alerted the FBI in the
mid-1990s that one or more Middle Eastern pilots were training or working in his state and appeared suspicious. 

Harry Ellen said he told an FBI agent in Phoenix in late 1996 or early 1997 that he met an Algerian pilot and several Middle Eastern men at an Arizona mosque. Ellen assisted U.S. intelligence during the 1990s but later had a falling out over his business and personal dealings in Asia and the Middle East. 

"I brought this to the attention of an agent in the local FBI whom I knew," Ellen said. "They did not seem particularly interested in the presence of these people. I stressed it was very odd that the Algerian man was involved in aviation." 

"One of the other men I believe was probably Mr. Raissi, although he would have been thinner and younger at the time," Ellen said. 

Law enforcement officials said that while Ellen helped the FBI, agents in Arizona have no record or recollection of him providing information about pilots. 

LONDON (AP) - A kitchen worker who sparked an anthrax alert a month after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks by leaving an envelope packed with white sugar powder to play a joke on a colleague was ordered Tuesday to do 100 hours of community service.

Celil Surmelek, 36, left the envelope addressed to chef Erdel Kolcak on the doormat at the Marmaris Restaurant in Bath, southwest England, where the two worked.

On opening the package, Kolcak's hands were covered in white powder and he panicked. Prosecutors told Bath Magistrates Court he called the police, fearing for his health and the reputation of the business.

A team of officers arrived in protective clothing and cordoned off the area before taking away the powder for examination.

Later that day restaurant boss Ramaza Kolcak questioned his staff and Surmelek admitted he had left the powder as a practical joke.

Magistrate Kate Mills ordered Surmelek, who was found guilty of intentionally causing the chef alarm or distress, to perform the community service and pay $250 in court costs.

"This offense was aggravated because of public concern due to the circumstances prevailing at the time regarding terrorism and anthrax attacks," she said. "A major police operation was conducted, and officers feared they were in potential danger. The victim was very genuinely frightened and feared for his health and safety."

In October last year, anthrax scares became daily events in Britain after a wave of real anthrax attacks hit the United States. The House of Commons and the British Broadcasting Corp. were among the dozens of recipients of hoax packages.

In the United States, five people died from the inhaled form of anthrax, including two postal workers, after letters containing anthrax were sent to people in Washington, D.C., Florida and New York.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The International Monetary Fund (news - web sites) said Friday that follow-up tests determined that no anthrax spores were present on mail it received.

IMF spokesman Francisco Baker said a private lab reported that more laboratory tests had found no live anthrax spores were present in a batch of mail that registered what turned out to be a false positive reading in a preliminary field test.

He said the mail room at IMF headquarters and a loading dock that had been sealed off since the initial positive reading on Monday would be open again for business on Tuesday, when employees return from the Memorial Day holiday.

The IMF's initial positive test result came after its sister lending agency, the World Bank (news - web sites), sent 1,200 employees home on Monday when a preliminary field test registered what also turned out to be a false positive reading for anthrax.

Both institutions were criticized by health officials for the way they handled the initial field tests.

Officials at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (news - web sites) said they were working up federal guidelines to prevent unnecessary prescription of antibiotics and needless alarms from preliminary field tests, which often produce false positives.

IMF officials said 100 persons at the agency had been given antibiotics, but many had decided not to begin taking them until the more definitive laboratory tests were received.

Four employees had been taking antibiotics before the World Bank received lab results on Wednesday determining no live spores were present.

Baker said the IMF would be happy to abide by whatever federal guideline are drawn up to govern future incidents where preliminary field tests indicate a possible anthrax presence.

By PAUL ELIAS, AP Biotechnology Writer 

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - An experimental anthrax antidote has protected rats injected with the bacterium's deadly toxin, researchers found.

University of Texas researchers say they've genetically engineered a mouse protein that offers an anthrax toxin a more attractive docking site than its usual target of healthy blood cells.

"This looks like the most promising antitoxin under development," said Dr. Robert Liddington, who studies the poison's atom-by-atom structure at the Burnham Institute in San Diego. "Certainly, if I had late-stage anthrax I'd pump some of these antibodies into my body."

The research targets that late stage, which is beyond treatment and often fatal. Anthrax infection can be treated with antibiotics early on, but victims rarely know they are infected until it's too late to save them. By then, the anthrax bacteria have flooded the bloodstream with three deadly toxins, and killing the germs with antibiotics may not help much, because the damage is already done.

So several scientific teams across the country have set their sights on those toxins. The University of Texas research appears to be among the most advanced.

The researchers cautioned that their work, funded by the U.S. Department of Defense (news - web sites) since 1997, is still years away from human tests. Still, they said results were promising.

"Although there is a long way to go, our current data makes us very optimistic at this point," said Brent Iverson, a University of Texas chemistry professor and co-author of the study published in the June issue of Nature Biotechnology.

In the study, 10 rats were injected with anthrax toxins. Five received the antitoxin and five were untreated. The untreated rats all died within two hours while the treated rats survived the five-hour experiment without displaying any anthrax-related symptoms.

The experiment was limited by ethical protocols to five hours, after which the surviving rats were euthanized.

Anthrax makes three different toxins to poison cells. One is called protective antigen, so named because it is used to make anthrax vaccine. The other two are edema factor and lethal factor.

Protective antigen starts the process by opening a hole in blood cells that lets in edema factor and the even deadlier lethal factor.

The antibody developed by the University of Texas researchers, dubbed 1H, binds with the protective antigen by offering it a more attractive docking surface than the blood cell. The resulting molecule is harmless and eventually clears from the body. The researchers said the 1H antibody can be made quickly, inexpensively and in large quantities.

"Combined with antibiotics, this could represent an effective treatment," Iverson said.

Five people died last fall when they were exposed to anthrax-laced letters, and at least 13 others contracted and recovered from either the skin or respiratory form of the disease.

ATLANTA (AP) - A Texas laboratory where a worker contracted anthrax failed to spray its vials with the recommended bleach solution because it made the labels come off, the government said Thursday.

The worker contracted the skin form of the disease in March after touching the vials without gloves and then touching a cut on his face, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (news - web sites) said.

The lab sprayed the vials with an alcohol solution instead of bleach, the CDC said.

Neither the worker nor the lab, which was contracted to handle testing during last year's anthrax scare, has been identified. The lab worker was in the hospital for five days, but recovered.

Including the Texas case, the CDC said 23 anthrax cases have been confirmed since Oct. 3.

By LAURA MECKLER, Associated Press Writer 

WASHINGTON (AP) - A conservative group is suing the Bush administration for access to documents surrounding last fall's anthrax attacks, asserting that top officials may have known that the bioterrorist attack was coming.

Judicial Watch said Friday it has yet to receive documents from several agencies after filing requests under the Freedom of Information Act. The group argues the documents will show who knew what, and when.

Judicial Watch, which also has sued for documents about Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites)'s energy task force, represents U.S. postal workers at the Brentwood mail-handling facility in Washington. Two workers from Brentwood died of inhalation anthrax before officials shut down the facility, which had handled anthrax-laden letters headed to Capitol Hill.

Larry Klayman, chairman of Judicial Watch, noted administration officials said last fall that some White House staff had begun taking the antibiotic Cipro on Sept. 11, weeks before the anthrax attacks were made public.

"We believe that the White House knew or had reason to know that an anthrax attack was imminent or under way," Klayman said. "We want to know what the government knew, and when they knew it."

White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe denied it categorically. "We did not know about the anthrax attacks. Period!" he said.

Johndroe said he didn't know with certainty why staffers were given Cipro but guessed it was "a precautionary measure in the early hours of Sept. 11 before the situation could be fully assessed."

He said he has not seen the lawsuit and had no comment on whether the administration would release the documents.

Judicial Watch is suing the U.S. Postal Service, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (news - web sites), the FBI (news - web sites), the Department of Health and Human Services (news - web sites) and the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Federal agencies have come under fire for failing to realize that the postal workers at Brentwood were at risk for anthrax even after an anthrax letter was discovered on Capitol Hill and treatment had begun for Senate staffers. Health officials have said they did not realize then that anthrax could have escaped a sealed envelope.

Klayman said the mistake goes beyond a bad judgment call.

"They deliberately withheld information," he said. "The political elite, they'll be protected from day one. The ordinary folks will be treated in a lesser fashion."

Associated Press

June 11, 2002, 11:34 AM EDT

BOCA RATON -- Boca Raton Mayor Steven Abrams wants the city to ask the federal government to take over American Media Inc.'s anthrax-contaminated building.

The building was the site of the nation's first fatal anthrax attack last year, causing the death of a photo editor from one of the publishing company's supermarket tabloids.

It is still closed and under government quarantine while ways to clean it, and pay for the cleanup, are being considered.

Abrams said the feds are considering taking over the building, with the blessing of AMI. He plans to ask his city council colleagues to help AMI's effort by publicly backing the transfer of the building.

``They (AMI) have asked the city to support their position,'' Abrams said. ``I'm going to encourage the council to take that position so I can write a letter in support of the government taking over that building.''

AMI spokesman Gerald McKelvey said the company is open to ``any reasonable way the issue can be resolved.''

``Obviously, it is a major problem for AMI to have custody of this building,'' he said.

Abrams surmised the government would likely use the building as an anthrax research laboratory, then clean it up.

``It would mean a quicker cleanup,'' Abrams said of a takeover. ``The alternative is this interminable requesting of federal funding for the cleanup.''

Councilman Bill Hager said the building could be a public health hazard if damaged by fire or a hurricane.

``Their lack of action is endangering the people of this city,'' Hager said. ``We need to get them off their duff.''

Last month, the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry said it would soon send a team of doctors, environmental scientists and computer modeling experts to conduct research in the building. 

Copyright © 2002, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

From The Telegraph, Macon, GA

FBI Probes Leads on Anthrax Source

DAVID DISHNEAU
Associated Press Writer

HAGERSTOWN, Md. (AP) - The FBI is investigating the possibility that someone secretly grew the deadly anthrax mailed to politicians and media outlets last fall at an Army laboratory in Maryland and further refined it at home, a government source and a scientist said.

The theory that anthrax was smuggled out of the biological warfare defense lab at Fort Detrick is one of several under consideration by the FBI, but none has been assigned more prominence than the others, a U.S. law enforcement official said Thursday.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, indicated that no arrests were imminent and that authorities remain largely frustrated in the lack of progress in their investigation.

Two FBI agents explored the smuggling theory during a three-hour interview Wednesday with Luann Battersby, a microbiologist who worked at the lab at Fort Detrick for eight years, Battersby said. The smuggling theory was first reported Thursday by The Hartford Courant.

Battersby, who left the Army Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick voluntarily in 1998, said the agents asked her, "if I wanted to grow something I wasn't supposed to, would there be somebody asking me about it and could I have taken it out of the lab? I told them no one checked, and it was far easier to get something out of Fort Detrick than into it."

While speculating how a terrorist might have obtained anthrax as virulent and finely milled as that used in the mailings that killed five people, "We came to the conclusion the source is really important," Battersby said. "It really is difficult to develop an organism from one you haven't cultured."

Fort Detrick officials have said lab security was enhanced after the anthrax attacks. Charles Dasey, a post spokesman, said the theory that the anthrax came from Fort Detrick was "just more speculation."

  ---

Associated Press Writer Ted Bridis contributed to this story.

By LAURA MECKLER, Associated Press Writer 

WASHINGTON (AP) - Sophisticated genetic fingerprinting that investigators hoped would help crack the anthrax case has yet to yield results. With the most promising avenue gone, the FBI is expanding its scientific probe, law enforcement officials said Wednesday.

"There's still potential out there," said a senior law enforcement official. "We are not at the point yet of being able to say it's over, done, there's nothing there."

Eight months after the attacks by mail killed five people, standard investigative techniques have yet to produce a breakthrough in the case.

The hope was that genetic matching could help determine which of about a dozen laboratories that have the Ames strain of anthrax, the type used in the attacks, was the source of the deadly microbes.

Scientists say it's still possible that genetic analysis will help, but they are increasingly pessimistic.

"I did think this would be a fairly straightforward case when this first came out," said Mark Whellis, a microbiologist at the University of California-Davis who serves on the Federation of American Scientists' Working Group on Biological Weapons. "Now, seven or eight months out from attacks, with no apparent forward movement in the case, it is quite distressing. It makes me pessimistic about ever resolving it."

Conventional genetic fingerprinting, tried early on, didn't work because the genetic makeup of anthrax changes very little from generation to generation, so various samples of the Ames anthrax are virtually identical.

But in January, researchers unraveling the entire genetic code of anthrax made an important breakthrough: They found small differences between the anthrax mailed to Florida, where the attacks first surfaced, and anthrax from a lab in England, a standard source of the microbe.

These researchers turned their work over to scientists in Arizona who are working for the FBI and have on hand hundreds of samples of anthrax, from every lab known to house the bacteria. The idea was to compare the anthrax held at each of these labs to the attack samples. If anthrax at a particular lab was more similar than others to the attack anthrax, that would suggest that this lab might be the source.

With this research in hand, scientists knew precisely where to look among the five million units of DNA that make up the genetic code of anthrax.

But that genetic fingerprinting failed to narrow the field because they were unable to find the same differences among samples in hand, FBI spokesman Bill Carter said.

The problem could be that the anthrax used in the attacks evolved genetically after it was taken from the lab, explaining why it no longer matches the lab samples, said Philip Hanna, an anthrax researcher at the University of Michigan Medical School.  Or, he said, it's possible that it came from a lab that has not provided a sample to the government, although authorities have subpoenaed anthrax samples from all labs known to have the microbe.

As a result, researchers working for the FBI are taking a step back, genetically speaking. They are unraveling the genetic code of the first anthrax sample that was used in laboratory work, which produced all the other samples now scattered around the country, so they can look for other tiny differences that may exist as anthrax changes over time, said the senior law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

It's unclear whether that will be any more successful.

"The deeper you have to delve into it, and you keep coming up negative, that's one more hope gone," Hanna said. "There was optimism. It was based on hope and not fact, and when the facts come in and they don't work out, you're disappointed."

Timothy D. Read, whose work at the Institute for Genetic Research in Rockville, Md. provided the FBI with its first genetic roadmap for anthrax, said it's disappointing that the differences identified by his team did not pinpoint the source. But he said additional research could be helpful.

"I don't think it's completely impossible," he said.

Read's genetic analysis began more than two years ago, when he and colleagues began studying the genetic code of an anthrax sample from the British biodefense laboratory at Porton Down in England. Porton Down had received its sample more than a decade earlier from the Army lab at Fort Detrick, Md.

In October, after the anthrax attacks, the National Science Foundation gave Read's institute $200,000 to expand its work and map the genetic code of the anthrax used in the attacks.

Read finished his work comparing the genetics of each sample in January and gave the data to Dr. Paul Keim at the University of Arizona, who is doing the genetic analysis for the FBI.

New technology for catching liars poses privacy, moral problems

By CHRISTOPHER NEWTON, ASSOCIATED PRESS 

WASHINGTON (AP) - The world is becoming a trickier place for people who tell lies - even little white ones.

From thermal-imaging cameras, designed to read guilty eyes, to brain-wave scanners, which essentially watch a lie in motion, the technology of truth-seeking is leaping forward.

At the same time, more people are finding their words put to the test, especially those who work for the government.

FBI agents, themselves subjected to more polygraphs as a result of the Robert Hanssen spy case, have been administering lie detection tests at Fort Detrick, Md., and Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, bases with stores of anthrax. Nuclear plant workers also are getting the tests in greater numbers since Sept. 11.

"There has been a reawakening of our interest in being able to determine the truth from each other," said sociologist Barbara Hetnick, who teaches a course on lying at Wooster College. "As technology advances, we may have to decide whether we want to let a machine decide guilt or innocence."

The new frontiers of lie detection claim to offer greater reliability than the decades-old polygraph, which measures heart and respiratory rates as a person answers questions.

They also pose new privacy problems, moral dilemmas and the possibility that the average person will unwittingly face a test.

At the Mayo Clinic, researchers hope to perfect a heat-sensing camera that could scan people's faces and find subtle changes associated with lying. In a small study of 20 people, the high-resolution thermal imaging camera detected a faint blushing around the eyes of those who lied.

The technique, still preliminary, could provide a simple and rapid way of scanning people being questioned at airports or border crossings, researchers say.

But would it be legal?

"As long as no one was being arrested or detained solely on the basis of the test, there is no law against scanning someone's face with a device," said Justin Hammerstein, a civil liberties attorney in New York.

"You could use the device to subject someone to greater scrutiny in a physical search or background check, and it would be hard to argue that it is illegal."

Barry Steinhardt of the American Civil Liberties Union said any technology that isn't 100 percent effective could lead unfairly to innocent travelers being stranded at airports.

"You would be introducing chaos into the situation and inevitably focusing on people who are innocent," Steinhardt said.

At the University of Pennsylvania, researcher Daniel Langleben is using a magnetic resonance imaging machine, the device used to detect tumors, to identify parts of the brain that people use when they lie.

"In the brain, you never get something for nothing," Langleben said. "The process for telling a lie is more complicated than telling the truth, resulting in more neuron activity."

Even for the smoothest-talker, lying is tough work for the brain.

First, the liar must hear the question and process it. Almost by instinct, a liar will first think of the true answer before devising or speaking an already devised false answer.

All that thinking adds up to a lot of electrical signals shooting back and forth. Langleben says the extra thought makes some sections of the brain light up like a bulb when viewed with an MRI.

MRI machines are bulky, but their potential as lie detectors could lead to the invention of smaller, more specialized versions, Langleben said.

Other tests are on the market, although how well they perform is an open question.

Hand-held "voice stress" detectors already are being sold for $300 to $600 at some department stores and on the Internet.

Makers claim the devices show when a person's voice trembles under the stress of a lie. Although skeptics say there is no proof they work, police in Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Miami are using more advanced versions and say they sometimes prompt confessions.

Also, the subject need not be present. Police can record a suspect's voice and check it for stress later.

Not everyone is sold on it.

"Voices can shake because people are scared about being interrogated by police," said Thomas Jakes, president of People for Civil Rights. "This technology is nothing but a way to scare people."

Critics say failure on any lie detector test can have unfair consequences, regardless of what the truth may be.

Mark Mallah says he was suspended and put under 24-hour surveillance after failing a routine polygraph test in 1994, when he was an FBI counterintelligence agent.

He was finally cleared and reinstated 19 months later. He quit.

"They never produced any evidence or came forward with anything, but the polygraph still undermined my career," said Mallah, who practices law in San Francisco.

In the CIA, routine polygraphs led to the suspicion of dozens of agents in the 1980s. Many were kept in professional limbo for years, according to an FBI report.

"We should try to avoid a society where suspicion is based on a machine and not on evidence," said Dale Jenang, a sociologist and philosophy researcher at the University of California, Berkeley. "Guilt and innocence are too important to leave to a machine."

By GRETCHEN PARKER, Associated Press Writer 

HAGERSTOWN, Md. (AP) - A biodefense researcher whose home was searched by FBI agents commissioned a 1999 study depicting a hypothetical anthrax attack by mail, a spokesman for his former company said Thursday.

The study was commissioned by Dr. Steven J. Hatfill while he was working for defense contractor Science Applications International Corp., said Ben Haddad, spokesman for the San Diego-based company.

The study was written by bioterrorism expert William C. Patrick III and describes placing 2.5 grams of Bacillus globigii, a simulated form of anthrax, in a standard business envelope, The (Baltimore) Sun reported.

The newspaper said portions of the study were read to it by a person who has a copy.

A government official close to the investigation said Hatfill is only one of many researchers who have allowed investigators to search their home to help clear them from all suspicion. Some other homes have already been searched.

The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Hatfill's background and interest in bioterrorism does not set him apart from others who are being interviewed in the case.

Hatfill, 48, is listed as a 1983 graduate on the Web site for the University of Zimbabwe Medical School, and he provided to the school his e-mail address from SAIC. Investigators also have confirmed that Hatfill is a graduate of the school.

The university is near the Greendale neighborhood of the capital Harrare. "Greendale School" in Franklin Park, N.J., was printed in large block letters as the false return address on the anthrax-laden envelopes sent to Sens. Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy.

One U.S. investigator cautioned, however, that the FBI has been unable to place Hatfill near Trenton, N.J., during the time the anthrax letters were mailed. Officials are convinced those letters were mailed from the Trenton area.

In Florida, meanwhile, FBI agents on Wednesday also searched a storage facility used by Hatfill.

Haddad said Hatfill and another scientist, Joseph Soukup, commissioned the report in February 1999 in their official capacity as employees of the contractor's biomedical sciences group. He said he didn't know how SAIC used the anthrax report.

"These people asked him to put his thoughts down regarding this subject, so that's why he's listed their names on the report," Haddad said.

Haddad wouldn't release the report, saying it was prepared for SAIC, not the federal government. He said SAIC employees tap all kinds of scientists for reports, not just studies of anthrax.

Hatfill's telephone at the Detrick Plaza Apartments near Fort Detrick has been disconnected and nobody answered a knock on the door Wednesday by an Associated Press reporter.

Hatfill has denied involvement in the anthrax mailings, complaining to The Sun in a March telephone message that he had been fired from the defense contractor and blaming news media inquiries.

"I've been in this field for a number of years, working until 3 o'clock in the morning, trying to counter this type of weapon of mass destruction, and, sir, my career is over at this time," Hatfill said.

Hatfill worked in the virology division of the U.S. Army Medical Institute of Infectious Disease at Fort Detrick, said Chuck Dasey, a spokesman for the western Maryland base. He worked for two years at the institute on a fellowship from the National Research Council, Dasey said.

He stopped working at Fort Detrick in September 1999 and was employed by SAIC until March 4.

The Sun said Hatfill was dismissed after his Defense Department security clearance was suspended on Aug. 23. Haddad said he couldn't comment on the report.

A U.S. law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the AP that Hatfill's security clearance expired and never was renewed. Such clearances must be renewed every five years.

The official described Hatfill as one of perhaps 200 people the FBI is interested in investigating further. The FBI has conducted about 25 searches of homes or apartments, always with the consent of the person they have interviewed, the official said.

Hatfill was first interviewed by the FBI in December, the official said.

Although Hatfill likely had access to anthrax in labs shared with bacteriology researchers, his primary duties didn't involve working with anthrax, Dasey said.

Hatfill had stored some of his belongings in north-central Florida after his parents sold their farm about 10 miles west of Ocala, the Ocala Star-Banner reported. About a dozen FBI agents pulled items from the building and placed them into a moving truck. The items, which included videotapes, film and photographs, were logged on evidence sheets, the newspaper reported.

Five people died in the anthrax attacks that began in late September. One of the dead was Robert Stevens, a photo editor for a tabloid newspaper headquartered in Boca Raton, 230 miles southeast of
Ocala.
 ___

Associated Press Writers Ted Bridis and Christopher Newton in Washington contributed to this story.

By DAVID DISHNEAU, Associated Press Writer 

HAGERSTOWN, Maryland - Federal investigators indicated they found no anthrax in the home of a former U.S. Army scientist questioned in connection with last year's deadly mailings.

Had anthrax spores been found in Dr. Steven J. Hatfill's Frederick apartment, he would be in jail, a law enforcement official said Tuesday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The FBI has identified Hatfill as one of 20 to 30 scientists and researchers with the expertise and opportunity to conduct the anthrax attacks, but investigators say he is not a suspect.

Five people died from inhaling anthrax spores mailed last fall.

On June 25, FBI agents, some in protective clothing, removed computer components and at least a half-dozen garbage bags full of material from Hatfill's apartment.

The apartment is outside Fort Detrick, where Hatfill worked for two years for the Army Medical Institute of Infectious Disease, center of the nation's biological warfare defense research.

He left the institute in 1999 and was employed by Science Applications International, a government contractor, until March. While there, Hatfill commissioned a report that included information about how an anthrax attack could be carried out through the mail.

Hatfill's lawyer, Thomas C. Carter, said his client was upset by the publicity of the search. "We have cooperated with them over and over, as have many other scientists," Carter said.

The FBI said it has searched about 25 homes or apartments with permission.

  ___

Associated Press Writer Christopher Newton in Washington contributed to this story.

By LAURA MECKLER, Associated Press Writer 

The White House is warning that anthrax field tests — widely used since last fall's attacks — give fast but often incorrect results, prompting authorities to shut down buildings prematurely and hand out unneeded antibiotics. 

In a memo being sent Monday to more than 250 federal agencies and to firefighters, police and local officials across the country, authorities say none of the commercially available field tests are reliable. They advise federal agencies to stop buying them and to cancel any contracts that are pending.

"This equipment does not pass acceptable standards for effectiveness," said the memo from John H. Marburger III, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. "Field testing ... is not recommended and should not be used." 

The advisory comes after an extensive study of the tests by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for the FBI. The study, the first of its kind, found that all tests on the market are prone to miss small amounts of anthrax and to detect anthrax when there was none there. 

The memo advises authorities to send results to a CDC-approved lab, where they can get initial readings within six hours. A 17-page set of guidelines offers detailed suggestions for how to handle suspicious mail, warning agencies not to take "dramatic actions" before figuring out whether the threat is credible. 

The guidelines also recommend that federal agencies stop routinely testing their mailrooms for anthrax, given that most mail is being irradiated, low levels of anthrax do not pose a significant risk and the tests used are not reliable. 

The field tests — which cost about $35 each — are designed to quickly determine whether a suspicious white powder could be anthrax, and hundreds of thousands of them were sold during and after last fall's attacks-by-mail. 

But false results cause real problems, officials say. 

In May, for instance, field tests indicated anthrax in the mailrooms of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The World Bank shut down the ventilation system in the entire building and sent 1,200 workers home because it was too hot to work inside. The IMF gave about 100 people antibiotics, though many held off taking them. 

In the end, anthrax was not confirmed at either location. 

"Bad information is worse than no information," said Dr. Michael Osterholm, a bioterrorism expert at the University of Minnesota who has been serving as an adviser to HHS. 

Still, at the World Bank, there are no regrets. 

"The bank will always err on the side of caution," said spokesman Damian Milverton. 

Milverson said forcing staff to work from home is "nothing" compared to the risk of ignoring what could actually be anthrax. But he added officials will consider the guidelines. 

Field tests are easy to use. A sample of suspicious powder is dissolved into a special fluid and run through a gadget to check for genetic markers from the Bacillus family, which includes anthrax. 

But they also pick up other bacteria in the Bacillus family that is not anthrax. And they won't register anthrax if there are fewer than 100,000 spores — more than enough to kill someone. 

The manufacturer of the most popular field test — Smart Ticket — responded that it is designed for use only if a visible powder is present. It's not designed to pick up anthrax that is floating invisibly through the air, said Cheryl Trudil, marketing manager of New Horizons of Columbia, Md. 

"If you have white powder on your desk and you're scared to death it's anthrax, someone can come and in 15 minutes tell you it's not anthrax," she said. 

But administration officials say that even with a powder, the test could miss a small amount of anthrax if it were mixed with other material. 

Trudil allows that the test produces some "false positives," but said that it's no big deal because the truth will come out when further testing is done in the lab. Without the field test, local officials would have to assume that all suspicious powders are anthrax and send them to the lab, which would cause severe backups, she said. 

Administration officials said the FBI looked at lab capacity and determined that it was sufficient to handle the demand. 

FBI: UConn Student Kept Anthrax
by MATT SEDENSKY
Associated Press Writer

WEST HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - A University of Connecticut student was charged Monday with keeping anthrax in a campus laboratory but authorities said he will not be prosecuted if he completes a pretrial diversion program.

Tomas Foral, 26, faces up to 10 years in prison for possessing a biological agent. However, the U.S. Attorney's Office said he will be allowed to participate in a program that could include community service.

Foral said he believes the case will be resolved in six months.

"I have no choice," he said outside his home. "It would be very expensive to go to trial. It would be unaffordable to me."

Two vials containing anthrax-infected animal tissue from the 1960s were found in a Foral's freezer in the laboratory Nov. 27, five days after the fifth and final death from last fall's anthrax attacks. Investigators said Foral had been told to des