* On October 4, 2001, at 9:57 P.M., a time when the FBI speculates that Bruce Ivins was making a dried powdered anthrax, he sent an email explaining he had been reading the news on the internet; he offered a possible explanation about Mr. Stevens’ illness identical to that accepted by the CDC regarding a recent case of inhalation anthrax contracted in 2011 by another man from Florida

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Dr. Bruce Ivins

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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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* Robert Stevens died eight years ago today, the first victim of the still unsolved anthrax attacks

CASE CLOSED is a novel which answers the question “Why did the FBI fail to solve the 2001 anthrax case?” … click here to … buy CASE CLOSED by Lew Weinstein

Here’s what readers say about CASE CLOSED  …

“CASE CLOSED reads fast and well. It could have happened just the way the author said. Full of intrigue mixed in with almost current events. The real people are just behind the fictional ones.”

“Author Lew Weinstein does a terrific job telling this fictionalized account of an inter agency post-mortem investigation of the (real) failed FBI investigation.”

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Robert Stevens

On October 5, 2001, Robert Stevens, photo editor for American Media Inc. of Boca Raton Fla., died after being infected with respiratory anthrax.

Eight years have passed.

We don’t know why Mr. Stevens was chosen to receive an anthrax laced letter; no letter addressed to him or to AMI has been recovered.

And we don’t know why his murderers have yet to be brought to justice.

We do know that Dr. Bruce Ivins, accused by the FBI as the sole perpetrator of the anthrax attacks, has never, after 8 years of the most comprehensive investigation ever undertaken by the FBI,  been linked to either Mr. Stevens or AMI.

Lawsuit by Mrs. Stevens vs. U.S. and Battelle

Mrs. Maureen Stevens, the victim’s widow, has filed a $50 million lawsuit blaming the federal government for her husband’s death, alleging that the government’s lack of security allowed a mentally unstable man access to “some of the deadliest substances known to mankind.”

The U.S. government appealed to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, asking that Mrs. Stevens’ suit be dismissed.

In March of this year, U.S. District Judge Daniel T.K. Hurley in Florida refused to dismiss Stevens’ suit against the federal government and Battelle Memorial Institute, sending the case back to U.S. District Court in West Palm Beach.

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