Anthrax Scientist Suicide as FBI

Gunga is a dead snake walking.


The new site has an ignore feature....and a mad snake button....

dlowan wrote:

Gunga is a dead snake walking.


The new site has an ignore feature....and a mad snake button....

But if we ignore gunga - Where to look for such jocularity?

But, if we ignore him, he might ignore us !!!?

Anthrax Scientist's Therapist Was "Scared To Death" Of Him, Says Scientist Tried To Poison People
by DAVID DISHNEAU and LARA JAKES JORDAN
New York Times
August 3, 2008

FREDERICK, Md. ?- Bruce E. Ivins, the late microbiologist suspected in the 2001 anthrax attacks, had attempted to poison people and his therapist said she was "scared to death" of him, according to court testimony that emerged Saturday.

Social worker Jean Duley testified at a court hearing in Frederick on July 24 in a successful bid for a protective order from Ivins _ who five days later committed suicide _ that he "actually attempted to murder several other people."

Ivins took a fatal dose of Tylonel as federal authorities monitored his movements and prepared to charge him with the murder of five people who died from anthrax poisonining in the weeks after the Sept. 2001 terror attacks.

An audio recording of the court session was obtained by The New York Times and posted it on its Web site. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/us/03anthrax.htm

"As far back as the year 2000, the respondent has actually attempted to murder several other people, either through poisoning. He is a revenge killer. When he feels that he's been slighted or has had _ especially toward women _ he plots and actually tries to carry out revenge killings," Duley said.

She added that Ivins "has been forensically diagnosed by several top psychiatrists as a sociopathic, homicidal killer. I have that in evidence. And through my working with him, I also believe that to be very true."

Ivins, 62, who worked at an Army biodefense laboratory at Fort Detrick, took his own life Tuesday as federal authorities were closing in after investigating him for more than a year in connection with the deaths of five people poisoned by anthrax sent through the mail.

Answers to one of the nation's highest profile unsolved mysteries are in documents that could be released as early as this week _ and help explain how the government chased the wrong suspect for years.

Prosecutors were mulling this weekend whether to close the anthrax poisoning investigation, possibly as early as Monday or Tuesday. If that happens, court documents detailing newly developed scientific evidence that recently led the government to Ivins may be unsealed.

Five people died and 17 others were sickened when anthrax-laced letters began showing up at congressional offices, newsrooms and post offices soon after Sept. 11, 2001.

After wrongly investigating Army scientist Steven Hatfill, the FBI more than a year ago began looking at Ivins, who worked at the same military lab. Ivins, a decorated scientist who was working on an anthrax cure, killed himself last Tuesday.

Two U.S. officials said victims and their survivors could be briefed as early as Tuesday on the final piece of the bioterrorism attacks that confounded the government.

The Justice Department attributed the break in the case to "new and sophisticated scientific tools" that cost the FBI about $10 million. Investigators said the science focused, in part, on how the anthrax strains were handled and who had access to it at the time of the mailings.

FBI scientists were able to isolate strains used in the attacks, and determined they were not as common as previously thought. And that led investigators to Ivins.

Had the same process been available years ago, it would have cleared Hatfill much earlier, according to two people familiar with the FBI investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity because the case is not officially closed.

The Army refused Saturday to say whether it had been reviewing the security clearance of the chief suspect in the anthrax attacks who had mental problems and killed himself as federal prosecutors were planning to indict him.

Ivins was removed from his lab in Maryland by police on July 10 and temporarily hospitalized, according to court records, because it was feared that he was a danger to himself and others. But it was unclear whether he was still employed by the lab at the time of his death Tuesday.

That raises the question of whether Ivins still had his security clearance and, if so, how he kept it, given that his social worker said Ivins had been viewed as homicidal and sociopathic by his psychiatrist.

Army spokesman Paul Boyce declined to comment on Ivins' case.

Boyce didn't respond to a question on what type of clearance microbiologists at the lab would have to hold.

David R. Franz, a former commander of the Army's lab biological warfare labs at Fort Detrick, Md., where Ivins worked, said Saturday he thought it was "very important that the FBI present their case against Bruce and not just state that the investigation was over because it was him and he's gone."

Franz added, "I'm concerned about what closing this case without conclusive evidence might do to harm our life sciences enterprise. ... I think we as Americans need to see the proof."

Initially, FBI profilers said they probably were looking for a loner with a scientific background. Maybe he had a grudge against the lawmakers and news organizations. Investigators also considered possible links to al-Qaida, the terrorist group behind the 9/11 attacks.

Intensive focus initially settled on Hatfill, who for years accused the government of unfairly targeting him. In late June, the government exonerated Hatfill and paid him a $5.82 million settlement.

With that, the government seemed no closer to solving the "Amerithrax" mystery. But, quietly, investigators were closing in on a different scientist, Ivins.

A murder indictment and the possibility of the death penalty could have produced a high-profile climax to the case. Shadowed by the FBI, Ivins died Tuesday from a Tylenol overdose, leaving the probe in limbo and a nation seeking answers.

"It's a shame the man is not here with us. We might have known more," said Maureen Stevens, whose husband, Bob, was the first anthrax victim.

Former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota, said: "I think the FBI owes us a complete accounting of their investigation and ought to be able to tell us at some point, how we're going to bring this to closure." Daschle's office received a letter containing the deadly white powder in 2001.

Among the unanswered questions is why the anthrax was sent. The FBI was investigating whether Ivins, renowned for his work developing anthrax vaccines and treatment, released the toxin to test those cures. Ivins was one of several scientists named in an application for a vaccine patent 18 months before the attacks.

Another puzzle is what finally led the FBI to focus on Ivins a year or so ago. Ivins attracted some attention for conducting unauthorized anthrax testing in the six months following the anthrax mailings, but the FBI focus stayed on Hatfill.

As Ivins' name emerged, so did a portrait of a conflicted, troubled man. His friends knew him as the man who played the keyboard at church, a Red Cross volunteer who was an avid juggler and gardener.

Others saw a darker side. Police recently removed him from work, fearing he was a danger to himself or others. Social worker Duley filed for a restraining order in a Maryland court.

"Client has a history dating to his graduate days of homicidal threats, plans and actions towards therapists," Duley wrote in court documents last week, adding that his psychiatrist had described him as homicidal and sociopathic.

Ivins' brother, Tom Ivins, said he had not spoken to Bruce Ivins since 1985, but acknowledged the possibility his brother may have been the anthrax mailer.

"It makes sense, what the social worker said," Tom Ivins said. "He considered himself like a god."

Ivins' lawyer, Paul F. Kemp, asserted the scientist's innocence and said he would have proved it at trial. Kemp said his client's death was the result of the government's "relentless pressure of accusation and innuendo."

Maryland's chief medical examiner, Dr. David Fowler, confirmed Saturday that Ivins died Tuesday morning at Frederick, Md., Memorial Hospital; that the cause of death was found to be an overdose of acetaminophen, the active drug in Tylenol; and that it was ruled a suicide based on information from police and doctors.

I mean, you either believe in the laws of probability and mathematics oryou don't.

"Client has a history dating to his graduate days of homicidal threats, plans and actions towards therapists,"

"As far back as the year 2000, the respondent has actually attempted to murder several other people, either through poisoning. He is a revenge killer...he plots and actually tries to carry out revenge killings"

Somebody would have to work a whole lot harder than they have to prove this newest piece of bullshit to me. You still have those first anthrax cases turning up ten miles from where the 9-11 jackers were staying and the first case that of a husband of a lady renting a room to one of them.

I mean, you either believe in the laws of probability and mathematics oryou don't.

Documents: FBI Searched Home, Lab in Anthrax Case
DOJ Outlines Its Case Against Army Scientist Bruce Ivins Who Committed Suicide Last Week
By LARA JAKES JORDAN and MATT APUZZO
WASHINGTON August 6, 2008 (AP)

Army scientist Bruce Ivins had custody of highly purified anthrax spores with "certain genetic mutations identical" to the poison that killed five and rattled the nation in 2001, according to documents unsealed Wednesday in the government's investigation.

Also, Ivins was unable to give investigators "an adequate explanation for his late laboratory work hours around the time of" the attacks, and he apparently sought to mislead investigators on the case, according to an affidavit filed by one government investigator.

The scientist committed suicide last week as investigators were preparing to charge him with murder in the 2001 attacks. The documents were released as the FBI held a private briefing for families of the victims of the episode, and officials said the agency was preparing to close the case.

The events in Washington unfolded as a memorial service was held for Ivins at Fort Detrick, the secret government installation in Frederick, Md., where he worked. Reporters were barred.

The documents disclose that authorities searched Ivins' home on Nov. 2, 2007, taking 22 swabs of vacuum filters and radiators and seizing dozens of items. Among them were video cassettes, family photos, information about guns and a copy of "The Plague" by Albert Camus.


They also reported seizing three cardboard boxes labeled "Paul Kemp ... attorney client privilege."

Ivins' cars and his safe deposit box also were searched as investigators closed in on the respected government scientist who had been troubled by mental health problems for years.

According to an affidavit filed by Charles B. Wickersham, a postal inspector, the scientist told an unnamed co-worker "that he had `incredible paranoid, delusional thoughts at times' and 'feared that he might not be able to control his behavior.'"

A mental health worker who was involved in treating Ivins disclosed last week that she was so concerned about his behavior that she recently sought a court order to keep him away from her.

New York Times
August 7, 2008
Officials Say Documents Tie Scientist to Anthrax Attack
By DAVID STOUT and ERIC LICHTBLAU

WASHINGTON ?- A few days before the anthrax attacks of 2001, the scientist who has emerged as the suspect in the case sent e-mails with wording that was sometimes identical to the language used in deadly anthrax-laced letters that autumn, according to documents released by the government on Wednesday.

Moreover, the government said, the scientist, Dr. Bruce E. Ivins, was the sole custodian as a microbiologist at Fort Detrick, Md., of the particular strain of anthrax used in the attacks, although he was not the sole person with access to that anthrax.

The e-mails, whose recipients were not revealed, warned that Osama bin Laden's "terrorists for sure have anthrax and sarin gas" and have "just decreed death to all Jews and all Americans," according to the documents.

The documents, released on the orders of a federal judge, were made public to bolster the Justice Department's contention that Dr. Ivins was the only person behind the mailings that killed five people and made at least 17 others ill while the country was still traumatized by the Sept. 11 attacks.

The government's assertion was disputed by the lawyers representing Dr. Ivins, who issued a statement labeling a Justice Department news briefing "an orchestrated dance of carefully worded statements, heaps of innuendo and staggering lack of real evidence ?- all contorted to create the illusion of guilt by Dr. Ivins."

Other expressions of doubt, plus the memory of the Justice Department's stumble in focusing on another scientist early in the investigation, made it likely that the anthrax case will be debated for a long time, especially now that the sole suspect is dead.

The document segment about the e-mails points out that the wording in them was similar, and in some instances identical, to the language in the anthrax-laced letters. "Death to America" and "Death to Israel" were phrases that appeared both in the doctor's e-mails and in the letters.

Moreover, the envelopes that held the letters were "federal eagle" envelopes, so-named because of the eagle perched on a bar bearing the initials "USA" in the upper right-hand corner. About 45 million of the pre-stamped envelopes were made by a Pennsylvania company between late 2000 and early 2002, and some bore tiny but tell-tale printing defects. Investigators traced those to the Dulles Stamp Distribution Office in Virginia , which serves post offices in Maryland or Virginia, the official documents relate.

And of the 16 government, commercial and university laboratories that had virulent anthrax strains like the one used in the deadly mailings, only one was located in Maryland or Virginia ?- the Fort Detrick lab where Dr. Ivins worked before his July 29 suicide, the documents say.

In addition, searches of Dr. Ivins's home in Frederick, Md., turned up "hundreds" of similar letters that had not yet been sent to media outlets and members of Congress, people who were briefed by the F.B.I. on Wednesday said. Those people said investigators found that Dr. Ivins sometimes kept odd, night-time hours in the lab, explaining that he was trying to escape troubles at home, and that he would sometimes drive to mailboxes miles out of his way.

"Ivins has been unable to give investigators an adequate explanation for his late night laboratory work hours around the time" of the mailings, the documents say. And around that time, Dr. Ivins was suffering from "incredible paranoid, delusional thoughts at times," in the doctor's own words to a colleague, and feared that he might not be able to control his own behavior, the documents go on.

The material released Wednesday is meant to bolster the F.B.I.'s circumstantial case against Dr. Ivins, who by many accounts had descended into paranoia and despair before he took his own life. Justice Department officials asserted at a news conference on Wednesday afternoon that they were confident Dr. Ivins was the mailer ?- an assertion that has been disputed by his chief lawyer, Paul F. Kemp of the Venable law firm.

"The government would have the American people believe that after seven years and more than $15 million of taxpayer money, they have found the individual responsible for the heinous attacks of the fall of 2001," Mr. Kemp said in his law firm's statement. "Nothing could be farther from the truth. In truth, Bruce Ivins was a devoted husband and father who worked for more than 30 years to defend his nation and its soldiers against the terrible effects of anthrax. The statements of scientists and co-workers at Fort Detrick are uniform in their support of Dr. Ivins, and that has been gratifying to his family."

But prosecutors said they had a chain of evidence that pointed to Dr. Ivins. "We regret that we will not have the opportunity to present evidence to the jury," the United States attorney for the District of Columbia, Jeffrey Taylor, said at the news conference. Mr. Taylor said the government was about to bring charges against Dr. Ivins.

As for motive, the documents suggest that in addition to whatever long-term personal problems he had, Dr. Ivins was distraught because a company had lost its government approval to produce an anthrax vaccine for troops, and he believed the vaccine was essential.

"It is hard not to be convinced, with what they have," said Patrick D. O'Donnell, a magazine sorter in New Jersey who was made ill by anthrax and who heard an F.B.I. briefing before the documents were released.

Officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation are particularly eager to close the case and publicly rebut accusations from defenders of Dr. Ivins that the bureau may have hounded an innocent man into committing suicide. Mr. Taylor said accusations that federal agents mistreated anyone during the investigation are "categorically false."

Robert M. Blitzer, who formerly directed the F.B.I.'s section on domestic terrorism, bristled at criticism of the bureau's methods in the anthrax case and called them a necessary part of tracking down the killer.

"You do the best you can, and it's not always pretty," he said. "A lot of times you interview folks over and over again, and you know they're lying and you've got to figure out why. It's a tough business. Here, you have a bunch of people dead and several diminished and you're charged with solving the crime. You try not to step on peoples' toes, but sometimes it happens."

The documents were unsealed by Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the Federal District Court here after Justice Department officials briefed relatives of some of the victims.

Patrick D. O'Donnell, who worked as a magazine sorter in New Jersey when he was sickened by the anthrax, went to Washington to attend the gathering. Mr. O'Donnell seemed confident, based on the news he has heard, that the F.B.I. had solved the case.

"It has taken a long time," he said Tuesday. "I guess they sat on these people long enough that they broke them. It is hard to believe it is almost over."

Before the documents were released, Robert S. Mueller III, the F.B.I. director, spoke to relatives of the victims and survivors of the attacks ?- a reflection of the importance the bureau attaches to the seven-year-old case. Members of Congress have demanded that Mr. Mueller explain why the case remained unsolved for so long. In June, the Justice Department agreed to pay a settlement worth $4.6 million to another scientist, Steven J. Hatfill, after publicly pursuing him as a suspect for years.

At the news conference, Justice Department officials would not discuss their years-long investigation of Dr. Hatfill, refusing to even acknowledge him by name when reporters asked about him. But while the officials did not exonerate Dr. Hatfill directly, they repeatedly said that they believed Dr. Ivins was the "sole"' culprit in the anthrax plot. The briefings and documents seemed unlikely to quiet all doubts about the case, as suggested by the feelings of a worker at the State Department's mail facility in Sterling, Va., who became severely ill from anthrax spores in the facility in October 2001.

When asked if he would attend the briefing, the worker, David R. Hose Sr., said, "Not on your life."

"I don't believe a thing they are giving out," Mr. Hose said in a telephone interview on Wednesday morning. "The guy's dead. They hounded him to death. It is an easy way out."

The documents recount Dr. Ivins's preoccupation with a Princeton, N.J., sorority whose headquarters were only a few yards from a post office where some of the letters were mailed, and they offer a possible explanation for a fictional New Jersey return address used on one of the letters: "4th Grade, Greendale School."

On 11 occasions, the documents related, donations were made to the Christian-oriented American Family Association by "Mr. and Mrs. Bruce Ivins" while the association was filing a federal suit on behalf of parents of students at Greendale Baptist Academy in Tupelo, Miss., alleging that the students were subjected to corporal punishment.

And the documents suggest a possible reason why Senators Tom Daschle of South Dakota, then the Democratic majority leader, and Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, then the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, were targets of anthrax-laced letters: both are Catholics who have come under fire from anti-abortion forces for supporting a right to choose an abortion.

In a 2002 e-mail to a friend, Dr. Ivins identified his wife as president of the Frederick County Right to Life organization and said she had connections to many anti-abortion groups. "I'm not pro-abortion, I'm pro-life, but I want my position to be one consistent with a Christian," the doctor said in the same e-mail, according to the documents.

Mr. Daschle said he had not been briefed by officials and would not comment until he is. Mr. Leahy is in Vermont, where Mr. Mueller is expected to brief him on Thursday.

Perhaps the most provocative piece of evidence to emerge publicly before Wednesday was the testimony of a therapist who treated Dr. Ivins in recent months and described him as homicidal.

But a number of colleagues at Fort Detrick have defended Dr. Ivins, saying that his recent mental state and his suicide were the result of many months of near-constant surveillance and scrutiny by the F.B.I., not a reflection of his guilt.

Some government officials have also questioned the strength of the bureau's case and said they were eager to see the grand jury documents.

One Congressional official briefed on the case said he was not persuaded that the F.B.I. had made a credible case in singling out Dr. Ivins in the group of people at Fort Detrick who had access to anthrax samples linked to the 2001 attacks.

The F.B.I. may be able to point to odd behavior on the part of Dr. Ivins, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the case is under seal. But he said the attention the bureau focused on Dr. Ivins was reminiscent of a past misstep: "It looks like what they did to Hatfill. Ivins was the weirdest one."

Friends and colleagues, meanwhile, have offered a fuller account of Dr. Ivins's difficult last nine months, saying that he was so distraught by the F.B.I.'s constant scrutiny that he began drinking excessively and had to be hospitalized twice for periods of weeks for substance abuse.

A friend and fellow member of a 12-step program for alcoholics who spent hours counseling him said Dr. Ivins, who at least in recent years had not been a drinker, went rapidly downhill after the F.B.I. searched his house and questioned his wife and children last November.

The friend, a fellow scientist who spoke on the condition that he not be named, said Dr. Ivins had repeatedly denied sending the anthrax letters and was particularly upset at what he considered to be the F.B.I.'s aggressive questioning of his children, Andrew and Amanda, both 24, as investigators tried to get them to turn on their father.

"He said, ?'I'm innocent of these charges,' " the friend said. "He was absolutely shocked they were going after him like this." Through much of the year, the friend said, Dr. Ivins was drinking large amounts of vodka, combined with Ambien and prescription tranquilizers. After being found unconscious in his home in March, he spent four weeks in a treatment program at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, Md. After that he spent another four weeks in treatment at the Thomas B. Finan Center in Cumberland, Md., being released to go home to Frederick in late May.

Judging from periodic phone calls in which Dr. Ivins often appeared to be intoxicated, the friend said he believed Dr. Ivins was drinking again between May and July, when he was admitted for two weeks to a psychiatric facility.