Man Named in Anthrax Probe Blasts Ashcroft

Biowarfare expert Steven J. Hatfill stepped up his efforts Sunday to clear his name, announcing that he has offered to provide blood and handwriting samples to the FBI and blasting Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft for calling him a “person of interest” in the government’s investigation of last fall’s anthrax attacks.

“I want to look my fellow Americans directly in the eye and declare to them: I am not the anthrax killer,” Hatfill said at a news conference outside his lawyer’s office in nearby Alexandria, Va.

The 48-year-old former Army virology researcher also said he had filed a series of complaints against the government, charging that federal agents were violating his privacy, continuing to follow and harass him, and “ruining” his life.

But Hatfill was most angry at Ashcroft. He accused the attorney general, a deeply religious Christian, of breaking the 9th Commandment--”Thou shalt not bear false witness”--by saying last week that, while the government had not identified an anthrax suspect, Hatfill remained a “person of interest to the Justice Department.”

Justice Department spokesman Mark Corallo said the agency would not respond to Hatfill’s “personal” attack on Ashcroft.

“The investigation is ongoing and we cannot comment further,” Corallo said.

Five people died and 13 more became ill after a series of letters tainted with anthrax were mailed last fall to business and government addresses on the East Coast--including in New York, Washington and Florida.

Federal law enforcement sources have said that between 20 and 30 people are considered possible suspects. But Hatfill’s name has been mentioned most often in the media.

Part of the interest in Hatfill stemmed from disclosures that he was writing a novel about bioterrorism, and that as part of his research he, like many of his former co-workers at the Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Ft. Detrick, Md., had been inoculated against anthrax.

But at a news conference two weeks ago, Hatfill said his last inoculation was in 1999 and that he is again susceptible to the bacteria.

He also said Sunday that agents since January have intensified their investigation--including searching his home and car--and that he had taken a polygraph test. “I was told I passed, and the examiner was satisfied that I had told the truth,” said Hatfill, whose current employer, Louisiana State University, has put him on leave.

To clear his name, he said, he has offered to provide blood and handwriting samples to the FBI in the hope that they will show he is not the anthrax killer. He said the FBI had agreed to the blood samples, which would measure the level of anthrax antibodies in his blood; a recent exposure would cause a high antibody level, he indicated. He did not say whether the FBI had agreed to the handwriting analysis.

Once the studies are complete, Hatfill said, the government should announce that the samples do not match what is known about the killer. That, he said, will show that “I had absolutely nothing to do with this terrible crime.”

Hatfill and his lawyer, Victor M. Glasberg, also released copies of six letters sent over the last few weeks, including complaints filed with the Justice Department and with the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility.

One, dated Aug. 13, complained that two searches of Hatfill’s house “immediately turned into live media events” and asked for an investigation into how information about him was leaked to the media. For example, the disclosure about his novel could have come only from the FBI, his lawyer has said, because the manuscript was on his computer’s hard drive, which the FBI seized and examined.

A second complaint filed Wednesday with the Office of Professional Responsibility specifically named Ashcroft and said that the attorney general’s “public dogging” of Hatfill was unethical. Ashcroft “does not have the right ... to preside over the public shredding” of Hatfill’s life, the complaint said.

Hatfill also recalled Sunday how Ashcroft was vilified by some of his political opponents during his confirmation hearings last year, and said that the attorney general should realize how people’s lives and reputations can be tarnished.

“My life,” Hatfill said, “is being destroyed by arrogant government bureaucrats. I have never met Mr. Ashcroft. I don’t know him. I’ve never spoken with him. And I do not understand his personalized focus on me.”

Times staff writer Mark Fineman contributed to this report.