Anthrax Probe Story Is Baloney, FBI Says

by Bruce Cadwallader and Catherine Candisky
The Columbus Dispatch
December 21, 2001


The FBI says it is not investigating a former Battelle scientist in relation to an anthrax scare, contrary to national broadcast news reports.

U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine said he talked to FBI Director Robert Mueller yesterday and was assured that the scientist was not being investigated. ABC News reported otherwise this week. "He said the ABC News report was not true, that 'The network did not check with us, we have no investigation and no one with or formerly with Battelle is a suspect,' " DeWine said.

The scientist hasn't been charged and isn't under investigation, so The Dispatch is not naming him.

ABC said he was at the heart of an investigation into an anthrax threat soon after Sept. 11.

The scientist, who said he now works in a bowling alley, told The Dispatch yesterday that agents searched his home in Milwaukee after he made a vague reference to police about anthrax during a dispute with a neighbor.

He said he later spoke to an ABC producer, denying any involvement with anthrax.

"I didn't even know what anthrax was back then," the scientist said. "My background does not involve biological weapons, and I never worked with anthrax."

An Oct. 5 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story quoted FBI agents as saying they seized computer equipment from his home but found no anthrax spores and discontinued the investigation.

The scientist, who worked at Battelle between March 1983 and April 1999, said his expertise included radioisotopes, military ordnance and decontamination.

It has been widely reported that Battelle is one of two research facilities in the country authorized to produce weapons-grade anthrax spores. The other is in Utah. Both have been searched by the FBI.

"We are cooperating fully with the investigation but we can't comment or provide any specific information on former personnel or an ongoing investigation," Battelle spokeswoman Katy Delaney said.

 

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