* Stevens vs U.S. settled … discrepancies and contradictions regarding the FBI’s claims that Dr. Bruce Ivins was the sole perpetrator will not be explored in trial

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Robert Stevens ... the first anthrax victim died in 2001

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 Jane Musgrave writes in the Palm Beach Post (10/28/11) …

• A long-awaited trial that would have laid bare the federal government’s role in the deadly 2001 anthrax attacks and challenged the FBI’s claims that one madman acted alone won’t be held after-all.
• Lantana widow Maureen Stevens, who has spent 10 years trying to get federal officials to accept responsibility for the death of her husband and four others, has settled her $50 million lawsuit against the government, her lawyer confirmed today.
• Attorney Jason Weisser said he couldn’t divulge the terms of the settlement until it is formally approved by the U.S. Justice Department.

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• The trial, he said, would have also tested the FBI’s much-criticized claims that the attacks were carried out solely by Bruce Ivins, a researcher at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md.
• In depositions …
• scientists testified that various people had access to the lab where Ivins allegedly produced the deadly compound. “We had people from Egypt, Poland, India, Iran, Latvia and China,” one former chief bacteriologist testified.
• Ivins’ former co-workers testified, he had neither the time, equipment or know-how to produce the deadly anthrax.
• Gerald Andrews, another chief of bacteriology at the institute, said Ivins never showed “that he understood weaponization technology of anthrax spores.”
• Further, he said, it would have taken Ivins six months to a year, working almost full-time, to produce the deadly spores. Someone, he said, would have had to help him.

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• Such conflicting testimony flummoxed government attorneys.
• They were trying to get the case thrown out, arguing that the government is not responsible for the actions of a rogue employee. However, in court filings that they ultimately redrafted and sealed, they, too, said some of the needed equipment wasn’t in the lab.
• Further, U.S. District Judge Daniel T.K Hurley last week ordered that some protected documents about the lack of security at the institute, be filed publicly by Tuesday.

read the entire story at … http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/lantana-anthrax-widow-settles-50-million-lawsuit-against-1939293.html

* For widow, anthrax victim’s fate still ‘open wound’

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Maureen Stevens

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For widow, anthrax victim’s fate still ‘open wound’
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/for-widow-anthrax-victims-fate-still-open-wound-1890269.html

• At first, Stevens said she was satisfied with the FBI’s 2008 conclusion that federal researcher Bruce Ivins was responsible. Ivins killed himself in 2008 as prosecutors were about to indict him.
• Even then, she said her suit was more about the federal government’s lack of control over the lab.
• And, she said at the time, “we have now been advised that the man the FBI believes perpetrated this heinous act has a history of mental instability of long standing, and yet he was allowed to work with anthrax and some of the most deadly substances known to mankind.”
• Then in April, Stevens’ lawyer filed papers citing evidence that disputes the 2008 findings.
• Ivins’ supervisors at a Maryland lab have said he lacked the time, equipment and knowledge to produce the anthrax.
• In February, a panel assembled by the National Academy of Sciences questioned the finding; the FBI challenged that.
• The Government Accountability Office has begun yet another review.
• “It is an open wound,” she said. “But something else inside me says, ‘I want it. I want to go to trial. I want it out in the open. I want it known how it happened.’

* DOJ has successfully avoided deposition of Amerithrax consultant Gregory Saathoff who extensively and uncritically relied on the Ivins’ accuser who claims she was granted her psychic abilities by an alien from another planet

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Dr. Gregory Saathoff

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* Amerithrax / Stevens v. United States – Defendant United States’ Second Set of Written Discovery Requests to Plaintiffs – Excerpt

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* AP: statements by scientists in Florida court case raise doubts regarding the FBI conclusion that Dr. Bruce Ivins prepared the anthrax used in the 2001 attacks

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has the FBI told the whole truth about their case against Dr. Ivins?

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Curt Anderson writes for AP (5/19/11) …

• The widow of a Florida tabloid photo editor who died in the 2001 anthrax mailings is casting fresh doubt on the FBI’s conclusion that a lone federal scientist staged the attacks, according to new documents filed in her lawsuit against the government.
• Maureen Stevens’ change of position is based on sworn statements made by two of the scientist’s superiors who said they don’t believe Bruce Ivins was solely to blame for the attacks that killed five people, including her husband Robert Stevens, and sickened 17 others in fall 2001.
• The statements raising questions about the FBI’s conclusions were made in depositions earlier this year by W. Russell Byrne and Gerard Andrews, who oversaw Ivins’ work at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md. Byrne was chief of bacteriology at the biodefense lab from 1998 to early 2000 and Andrews held the post from 2000 to 2003.
• According to court documents, Byrne told Stevens’ attorneys
• that Ivins “did not have the lab skills to make the fine powdered anthrax used in the letters”
• and that it would have been difficult for Ivins to do the work at night undetected.
• Byrne said others would have noticed the unusual use of equipment and supplies because of the hazardous microbes involved in their work.
• Andrews, the other superior, told lawyers
• it would have taken Ivins six months to a year to refine the anthrax spores used in the deadly mailings, instead of the roughly 20 hours the FBI found he spent at night in the lab.
• Andrews also said Ivins did not have the expertise to do the work and some of the necessary equipment wasn’t available at Fort Detrick at the time.
• The FBI has repeatedly insisted that Ivins is responsible for the deadly anthrax. “The Amerithrax investigation found that the late Dr. Bruce Ivins acted alone in planning and executing these attacks,” the FBI statement said.
• Trial is currently scheduled for Dec. 5 before Senior U.S. District Judge Daniel T.K. Hurley in West Palm Beach. Hurley has refused U.S. government attempts to get the case dismissed, and his rulings were upheld by an appeals court.

read the entire article at … http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/nation/7571742.html#ixzz1MoxdwCNy

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* Excerpt from Plaintiff’s filing in Amerithrax civil suit explaining why Dr. Ivins is not perpetrator: Dr. Byrne’s deposition

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* Excerpt from Plaintiff’s filing in Amerithrax civil suit explaining why Dr. Ivins is not perpetrator: Dr. Andrews deposition

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* Doubt of anthrax suspect’s role resurfaces in a lawsuit by the widow of anthrax victim Robert Stevens of Florida

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has the FBI told the whole truth about their case against Dr. Ivins?

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Jane Musgrave writes in the Palm Beach Post (4/30/11) …

• Add Maureen Stevens to the list of people who don’t believe troubled federal biodefense researcher Bruce Ivins killed her husband and four others in the 2001 anthrax attacks.
• In court papers filed this month, attorneys representing Bob Stevens’ widow said they had gathered evidence that disputes FBI claims Ivins sent five anthrax-laced letters to politicians and media outlets
• Maureen Stevens’ attorneys originally agreed to accept the findings of the estimated $100 million FBI investigation.
• But when Ivins’ bosses at the military lab in Maryland insisted under oath that he lacked the time, equipment and know-how to produce the anthrax, the attorneys said they could no longer accept the findings.

problems with the government’s case against Dr. Ivins …

• It would have been impossible for Ivins to use lab equipment without being detected
• he would have left evidence … anthrax dust would have covered the machine he (was alleged) to use to produce the powder.
• Dr. Ivins did not have the lab skills to make the fine powdered anthrax used in the letters.
• Ivins never showed “that he understood weaponization technology of anthrax spores”
• the FBI grossly underestimated the time it would take to produce the amount of anthrax used in the letter attacks.
• Ivins would have needed six months to a year, working almost full-time
• someone would have had to help him.

read the entire article at … http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/doubt-of-anthrax-suspects-role-resurfaces-in-lawsuit-1444809.html

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LMW COMMENT …

In other words, there is no case against Dr. ivins. The Stevens’ law suit against the U.S. government is an opportunity to demonstrate that in a court of law, something the FBI conveniently by-passed by charging a dead man who could not defend himself.

So what really happened? And why doesn’t the FBI offer America a credible story?

As regular readers of this blog well know, I can imagine only 3 possible “actual” scenarios …

1. The FBI has more evidence against Dr. Ivins but is, for some undisclosed reason, withholding that evidence … POSSIBLE BUT NOT SO LIKELY
2. The FBI, despite the most expensive and extensive investigation in its history, has not solved the case and has no idea who prepared and mailed the anthrax letters that killed 5 Americans in 2001 … EVEN LESS LIKELY
3. The FBI knows who did it (not Dr. Ivins) but is covering up the actual perpetrators, for undisclosed reasons …THE MOST LIKELY SCENARIO

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