Justice Dept. to pay scientist $5.8 million in anthrax lawsuit

WASHINGTON -- The former Army scientist who for years was the prime suspect in the deadly 2001 anthrax mailings agreed Friday to take $5.8 million from the Justice Department to settle his claim that the government invaded his privacy and ruined his career.

Steven Hatfill, 54, called a "person of interest" in the case by then-Attorney General John Ashcroft in 2002, said that label and repeated leaks of investigative details to the media damaged his reputation.

For months in the anxious atmosphere following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Hatfill was subjected to 24-hour surveillance and identified as the leading suspect in the nation's first bioterrorism attack. However, he was never arrested or charged, and a federal judge presiding over his lawsuit said recently that there "is not a scintilla of evidence" linking him to the mailings.

Former federal prosecutors knowledgeable about the investigation said the government's payout to Hatfill signifies that, in all likelihood, he will never be charged.

The settlement calls for an immediate $2.82 million payment to Hatfill. Beginning in 2009, the government will pay Hatfill an annuity of $150,000 a year for 20 years, according to court papers.

"Our government failed us, not only by failing to catch the anthrax mailers but by seeking to conceal that failure," Hatfill's lawyers said in a statement.

The statement also blamed journalists for not questioning the motives of the government's statements or its tactics.

"As an innocent man, and as our fellow citizen, Steven Hatfill deserved far better," the lawyers said.

Five people were killed and 17 sickened by anthrax that was mailed to lawmakers on Capitol Hill and members of the news media in New York and Florida just weeks after Sept. 11.

Hatfill, who worked at the Army's laboratory at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Md., in the late 1990s, was the subject of a flood of media coverage beginning in mid-2002 after television cameras showed FBI agents in biohazard suits searching his apartment.

Hatfill's lawsuit, filed in 2003, accused FBI agents and Justice Department officials involved in the criminal investigation of the anthrax mailings of leaking information about him to the news media in violation of the Privacy Act.

The settlement of Hatfill's lawsuit likely means that former USA Today reporter Toni Locy will no longer face up to $5,000 a day in fines in the case. A federal judge ordered her to identify the officials who discussed Hatfill. When she said she couldn't remember, the judge ordered her to identify all her sources on the anthrax case.

She challenged that order, but a federal appeals court has yet to rule in the case. Because Hatfill's lawsuit is being settled, Locy's case will probably be dismissed as moot, though that will be up to the appeals court.

Information from The New York Times and The Associated Press is included in this report.