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Anthrax I: Suspect Maryland Ponds Remain Open While FBI Considers New Searches By Greg Webb Authorities first searched the ponds in December 2002 as part of the FBI’s Amerithrax investigation into the anthrax attacks. The forest is less than five miles from the U.S. biological defense laboratory at Ft. Detrick, Md., and near the former home of Steven Hatfill, whom U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft has identified as a “person of interest” in the case. The winter searches reportedly uncovered some discarded laboratory equipment, including what could be a glovebox, a tool to work on dangerous materials while preventing their release. The Washington Post reported nearly two weeks ago that the FBI had notified local officials that it would begin draining one pond by June 1, but an FBI spokeswoman told GSN that investigators have not decided whether to proceed. “We have acknowledged that that is under consideration, and no decision has been made,” said Debra Weierman of the FBI Washington field office. Two visits by GSN to the ponds in the past week showed that they are unguarded and that there are no access restrictions. Allowing a public notification of where a future search may be conducted is highly unusual, according to former federal prosecutor Judson Lobdell. In a trial, evidence found in such a search would face great scrutiny, he said. “The fact that the government told everyone well in advance where it was going to be looking would give a very strong argument to the defense that this evidence ought to be entirely discounted,” said Lobdell, now in private practice in San Francisco. “Our firm handled a case here in which a similar defense was successful, a criminal case in which some evidence was found in a trash can near where the defendant resided. But there was public access to that trash receptacle for quite a long time and the argument was made before the jury, and successfully, that it proved nothing that there was some evidence in that trash can. It could have been put there by anybody,” he said. Now that the search location has been revealed, Lobdell said, any evidence found in the future would be of limited value at trial unless linked directly to a suspect by physical evidence, such as fingerprints. The advance notification of the search undermines any argument that evidence recovered from the pond must have been dumped there by Hatfill because it is close to his former home, he said. Calling the FBI strategy “a little peculiar,” Georgetown University law professor Paul Tague said that as long as any discoveries were firmly linked to an individual suspect, the ponds’ public accessibility would not undermine the value of the evidence. However, the delay in searching for the evidence could “lead jurors to question the probative worth of the evidence.” “You almost infer that they don’t think there’s much to be found. Otherwise, I would have thought they would have searched all of these ponds” by now, Tague said. Questioning the FBI’s motives in making the advance search notification, Tague said, “Maybe they’re trying to reassure us that they’re doing more work, but at the same time a statement like this strikes one as peculiar because it doesn’t exactly allay my concerns. … Somebody could go and plant stuff or withdraw stuff in some unprotected or unsupervised place.” The FBI’s Weierman refused to describe the investigators’ strategy for this case or in general. “Each case is a different case,” she said, “so for me to go and say ‘Well, somebody’s going to go and disrupt or impinge upon our case,’ I’m not going to say that. I can’t give you a blanket statement because you can’t give a blanket statement when each and every case has its own personality.”
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