Looks like they got their man. In addition to the evidence they cited, if this guy was innocent, he stood to make a lot of money just like Hatfield.
Prosecutor calls researcher sole culprit in 2001 anthrax attacksStory Highlights
NEW: Federal prosecutor says Bruce Ivins acted alone in attacks that killed five
Records say Ivins tried to mislead feds with false samples of bacteria
Justice Department releases hundreds of pages to public
Source tells CNN scientist borrowed machine to convert wet anthrax to powder
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A federal prosecutor declared Army biological weapons researcher Bruce Ivins the sole culprit in the 2001 anthrax attacks Wednesday, after releasing a stack of documents from a "herculean" investigation that lasted nearly seven years.
Officials said biodefense researcher Bruce E. Ivins, seen here in 2003, committed suicide.
"We are confident that Dr. Ivins was the only person responsible for these attacks," Jeffrey Taylor, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, told reporters Wednesday afternoon.
The Justice Department released the documents implicating Ivins in the attacks, which killed five people and sickened more than a dozen people.
Authorities said Ivins committed suicide last week as federal prosecutors prepared to present the results of their investigation to a grand jury.
Taylor said prosecutors are "confident" they could have proved their case against him.
Ivins was the custodian of a flask of a highly purified anthrax spores that had "certain genetic mutations identical to the anthrax used in the attacks," according to the court documents unsealed Wednesday.
In an affidavit filed in support of a search warrant, U.S. Postal Inspector Thomas Dellafera said Ivins' laboratory at the U.S. Army Medical Institute of Infectious Diseases "afforded all of the equipment and containment facilities which would have been needed to prepare the anthrax letters used in the fall 2001 attacks."
He told investigators in March 2005 that he could "provide no legitimate reason for the extended [work] hours, other than 'home was not good' and that he went to the laboratory 'to escape' from his home life," the affidavit states.
The affidavit said that Ivins tried to mislead federal agents by submitting false samples of the bacteria from his lab to FBI agents for analysis.
Dellafera also said Ivins sent an e-mail a few days before the attacks that contained language similar to that in anthrax-laced letters sent to news organizations and senators.
The handwritten letters bore a Trenton, New Jersey, postmark and the date "9-11-01." They ended with "Death to America. Death to Israel. Allah is Great."
However, investigators soon began focusing not on Islamic militants but on staff at Fort Detrick, Maryland, the home of the Army institute.
A few days before the attacks, investigators say, Ivins had sent an e-mail to a person whose name was blacked out in the documents that warned that al Qaeda followers "for sure have anthrax and sarin gas" and used phrases "similar to the anthrax letters," the affidavit states.
The records include 14 search warrants, information used to request those warrants and summaries of what was found, a court official said. The official declined to be named because he was not authorized to speak publicly. See a list of items taken from Ivins' home (PDF)
The FBI released the evidence to the public after survivors and relatives of victims were briefed on the case, a government source familiar with the case said Tuesday.
The Justice Department asked U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth to release the documents Wednesday morning, sources with knowledge of the investigation told CNN.
Ivins spent more than 30 years as a civilian microbiologist at the Army's biodefense lab at Fort Detrick, where he was trying to develop a better vaccine against the disease.
A lawyer for Ivins said last week that his client was not involved in the attacks, and that the pressure of the investigation led to his death.
The case will not be considered closed because of incomplete administrative details, the source said.
Officials say Ivins, 62, was found unconscious at his home July 27 and died at a Maryland hospital July 29, the same day he was to have discussed a plea deal with prosecutors.
A lawyer for Maureen Stevens, the widow of Bob Stevens, the first victim of the attacks, told CNN she was invited to the FBI briefing and will attend.
The tabloid photo editor died after inhaling anthrax that investigators believe was in a letter sent to American Media Inc., the publisher of the Sun and National Enquirer tabloids, at its offices in Boca Raton, Florida.
A source familiar with the investigation said Tuesday that in the fall of 2001, Ivins borrowed a machine that can convert wet anthrax -- the kind used at Fort Detrick where Ivins worked -- into dry powder -- the kind used in the anthrax letters. See whether freeze-drying equipment could be a clue to the case »
Such machines, called lyophilizers, are not usually used at Fort Detrick, although they are easy to obtain.
Experts said the report may have no significance.
"I wouldn't necessarily make the conclusion that, just because he had access to a lyophilizer and used a lyophilizer , that that provides a smoking gun, that he must be using this for sinister purposes," said Peter Hotez, chairman of microbiology at George Washington University in Washington.
Richard Spertzel, a former biodefense scientist who worked with Ivins at the lab at Fort Detrick, said a more advanced machine than a lyophilizer would have been necessary.
"There is no way" that a lyophilizer could have created the fine spores contaminating the 2001 letters, he said. In addition, he said, no one working at a U.S. government lab could have produced such high-quality anthrax in secret.
Ivins became a suspect after investigators found DNA evidence from the 2001 anthrax mailings on a flask used in his laboratory at the institute, according to a source who is familiar with the investigation but not authorized to speak publicly about the case. No charges in the anthrax attacks have been made public. Watch a former co-worker express doubt about Ivins' guilt »
Ivins, of Frederick, Maryland, had worked for decades in the biodefense lab at Fort Detrick, where he was trying to develop a better vaccine against the toxin.
The FBI had traced the anthrax used in the attacks to the lab by using a new technology, a U.S. official familiar with the investigation said.
Authorities were looking at whether Ivins may have released anthrax to test a vaccine he was working on, another official said.
Some of the anthrax-laced letters, written in crude block letters, included the words "Take penacilin (sic) now," according to photographs released by the FBI.
At the time of his death, Ivins was under a temporary restraining order sought by a social worker who had counseled him in private and group sessions. She accused him of having harassed, stalked and threatened her with violence.
The woman told the court in her complaint that Ivins had been treated at a mental health facility.
Steven Hatfill, another government scientist who was named by the Justice Department as a "person of interest" in the attacks, was never charged and later sued the department, which settled the case in June.
The skepticism in scientific circles about the strength of the case against Ivins heightens the importance of the government's unveiling of its evidence against the scientist, a former prosecutor said.
"I think the public and the survivors of the anthrax attacks are entitled to see the evidence before the grand jury," said Andrew McBride. "And if there was a draft indictment, and they were ready to indict Mr. Ivins, they ought to see that as well."
http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/08/06/anthrax.case/index.html
