ALEXANDRIA, Va., Aug. 25 (UPI) -- Lawyers for Steven Hatfill, the man named as a "person of interest" in the anthrax investigation by Attorney General John Ashcroft, made public a formal complaint Sunday charging Ashcroft with violating Justice Department regulations.
Hatfill claimed that he had been singled out for harassment because, after nearly eight months since five people died after handling anthrax-laced letters, "the one certain progress that the FBI has made in the case is its inability to find any evidence connecting me to the anthrax attacks."
Without him, Hatfill said, "they are in a rough place. If the FBI does not have me as a 'person of interest' then what does it have? What it has is a stalled investigation, characterized by a lack of proper scientific investigation and expertise."
Hatfill's lawyer, Victor M. Glasberg, distributed copies of formal complaints he forwarded Wednesday to the Justice Department's inspector general, the FBI's Office of Professional Responsibility and to Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Leahy was one of the senators sent an anthrax-laden letter last fall.
"The public dogging of Dr. Hatfill by Mr. Ashcroft and those who report to him," the complaint said, "violates both the letter and the spirit of the federal regulations and guidelines which are supposed to govern the press-related work of our federal law enforcement officers." The complaint names a section of a manual of instruction for United States attorneys, which limits what can be said by federal law enforcement about a person under investigation.
"Mr. Ashcroft has the right and the obligation to cause an appropriate investigation to be made so as to identify the mailer of the anthrax letters," Glasberg said. "But Mr. Ashcroft does not have the right, under the governing regulations or under basic principles of fair play, to publicly stigmatize an uncharged, presumptively innocent man, and to preside over the public shredding of his life."
Glasberg released the letter at a news conference Sunday in front of his Alexandria office after Hatfill read a detailed, prepared statement. Glasberg said Hatfield would not answer any questions, but the lawyer and Patrick Clawson, a former CNN reporter who has been helping Hatfill, answered questions.
In his statement Hatfill said that by Ashcroft naming him a "person of interest," he has "not only violated Justice Department regulations... but in my view he has broken the Ninth Commandment: Thou shalt not bear false witness."
"Several days ago," Hatfill said, "Justice Department representatives confirmed to The Associated Press that there was no evidence linking me to the anthrax attacks.
"Despite this lack of evidence, I am still hounded by FBI agents and victimized by a never-ending torrent of leaks and innuendo from the United States attorney general and unnamed others, all of which is then amplified and embellished by the news media," he said.
Hatfill, his voice occasionally choking with emotion, described how his girlfriend's apartment was subjected to a search and she was detained and mistreated by FBI agents.
"It's not good to be the girlfriend of a person of interest. My girlfriend was locked inside an FBI car and hauled off to FBI headquarters and interrogated for hours without once being told she had the right to leave any time she wished. Her requests for a lawyer were delayed and made difficult. Her purse, although not on the search warrant, was taken from her and its contents examined after the interrogation was finished and she was being driven home," he said.
"She was screamed at by FBI agents and told that the FBI had firm evidence that I killed five people. This was told to my girlfriend by FBI agents Jennifer Gant and Pamela Lane. Can you imagine that? The FBI trumpets that I am not a suspect, and the woman I love is told the FBI has conclusive evidence that I am a murderer," Hatfill said.
Hatfill claimed that his girlfriend's property was damaged when the FBI searched her home and he distributed several pictures showing boxes and packing cases strewn all over. He said she was packing to move to Louisiana.
Hatfill himself has been in Louisiana for the past two weeks where he is on paid leave from Louisiana State University. Hatfill was engaged in June as a $150,000-a-year associate director of a bioterrorism training program for police.
On Aug. 2, when the FBI conducted the second search of his apartment in Rockville, Md., Hatfill was placed on 30 days' paid leave. The university will decide whether to retain him in the first week of September.
Hatfill issued new details he said indicated he could not be the man who mailed the anthrax-laced letters. Noting that the FBI has established that four anthrax letters were mailed on Sept. 17 and 18 and Oct. 9 and 10, Hatfill released copies of his attendance records at SAIC, a government contractor, where he was involved in counter-terrorism work. The records, he said, showed he worked 11- to 14-hour days on each of those occasions as he and his colleagues at SAIC dealt with post-Sept. 11 dangers. He said this would not have given him enough time to drive to Princeton or Trenton, N.J., where the letters were mailed.
Hatfill said he has suggested a drug test to the FBI and has agreed to take it himself that will show whether certain changes in his blood would indicate anthrax exposures or an increased use of an anthrax vaccine. He said he would also give the FBI handwriting samples to compare with the letters. He asked the news media to monitor the results of those tests.
