F.B.I. Did Not Test Letter to NBC or Immediately Notify City Hall

[Karsten M. Self]

on Sat, Oct 13, 2001 at 04:40:02PM -0700, AARG! Anonymous (remailer at aarg.net)
wrote:
> http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/13/nyregion/13HAND.html

That was utterly unreadable.  Please format posted material such that
it's legible.

    October 13, 2001

    F.B.I. Did Not Test Letter to NBC or Immediately Notify
    City Hall

    By JENNIFER STEINHAUER and JIM DWYER

    Although the F.B.I. was notified on Sept. 25 about suspicious
    letters sent to NBC, neither the letters, nor the powder residue
    inside them were tested until nearly two weeks later, and then only
    because a private doctor notified city public health officials about
    a troubling skin condition in the news assistant who had handled the
    mail, officials acknowledged yesterday.

    In fact, the F.B.I. laboratory neither performed nor sought any
    tests on the powder or the skin samples taken from the employee,
    identified as Erin M. O'Connor, a 38-year-old assistant to Tom
    Brokaw.

    "That, unfortunately, did not take place," said Barry W.  Mawn,
    assistant director in charge of the F.B.I.'s New York office.

    He also said the agents had intended to interview Ms.  O'Connor soon
    after they learned of the case, but did not, for reasons he did not
    explain.

    F.B.I. officials said investigators picked up the envelopes on Sept.
    26, the day after NBC security officials called the agency. New York
    City officials were not informed of the preliminary inquiry until
    days later.

    Indeed if the Health Department had not been alerted to the case by
    a private doctor, it might well have hibernated in the F.B.I. files.

    Mr. Mawn said yesterday that the agency had to investigate dozens of
    threats, scares and false alarms, and that is how this case was
    initially treated. Since Sept. 11, when the two planes slammed into
    the World Trade Center, city and federal law enforcement officials
    have received hundreds of reports of menace and foul play ranging
    from bomb threats to chemical attack scares.

    The discovery of a case of apparently deliberate anthrax poisoning
    in the heart of New York City is just the latest in a string of
    terrifying events that have challenged the law enforcement and
    health care infrastructure in the last month. It pushed health care
    officials to nail down a pathogen that most of them had no
    experience with.

    And it once again tested the fragile relationship that has always
    existed between the New York City Police Department and the F.B.I.,
    agencies that are forced to work in tandem on unprecedented and
    constantly evolving crimes.

    "Information sharing between the F.B.I. and the N.Y.P.D.  has always
    been poor," said one person who has worked closely with both
    agencies. "There is often a lack of willingness on the F.B.I.'s part
    to share information, although it is getting better. As they move
    forward, clearly the F.B.I. is going to have to be more
    forthcoming."

    In this case, Mr. Mawn said, the gravity of the situation was not
    fully appreciated by the federal authorities until recently.

    On Sept. 25., Ms. O'Connor handled a letter postmarked from St.
    Petersburg, Fla., filled with white powder, according to law
    enforcement officials. She also handled a second letter containing a
    sandy substance. Network officials, immediately suspicious, called
    the F.B.I., which picked up the letters the next day.

    Then, the agency began to prepare a cover letter for its own
    laboratory indicating that the substances needed to be tested, but
    the letter was never completed and the evidence was never sent from
    the F.B.I.'s office in New York to its laboratory, said Joseph
    Valiquette, an F.B.I. spokesman.

    He added that some delays happened because investigators were unable
    to interview Ms. O'Connor to supplement the cover letter. "We wanted
    to send a complete package to the laboratory," said Mr. Valiquette.
    So none of it was sent. Mr. Valiquette said he did not know why the
    F.B.I.  could not speak with Ms. O'Connor, who works in Rockefeller
    Plaza and lives in the metropolitan area.

    On Sept. 28, Ms. O'Connor developed a strange sore on her chest.
    Nervous, she went to see Dr. Richard Fried, a Manhattan infectious
    disease specialist, said Dr.  Annetta Kimball, the doctor covering
    for Dr. Fried, who could not be reached last night.

    Armed with the description of the rash   which she described as
    central scarring surrounded by a lot of swelling   the doctor likely
    consulted his textbooks to nail down what was going on. Dr. Kimball
    said that Dr.  Fried suspected that his patient had been exposed to
    anthrax, and immediately prescribed Cipro.

    "There is a good chance he had never seen anthrax before," said Dr.
    Kimball. "This is New York City, not an agricultural area." He also
    took cultures from a wound Ms. O'Connor developed, but those swabs
    were negative for anthrax, she said.

    At some point, officials and Dr. Kimball said, the patient visited a
    dermatologist.

    One of those doctors notified the city's Health Department on Oct. 6
    of a possible case of anthrax. The city has among the most
    sophisticated epidemiologists and public health labs in the country.

    Mr. Valiquette said that the F.B.I. learned from the city's Health
    Department that "this was an issue." The substance eventually made
    its way to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in
    Atlanta, which went to unusual lengths to identify it. There was
    little powder to work with, and a power failure in the lab halted
    the work for nearly a day, said Dr. James M. Hughes of the C.D.C.

    "None of this ever did go to the F.B.I. lab," he said.

    One of the Ms. O'Connor's doctors ordered a skin biopsy, which was
    sent to the C.D.C. But by the time the tissue was taken, the patient
    had begun taking an antibiotic to counter possible anthrax. As
    intended, that drug degraded the cellular structure of the bacteria.
    On Wednesday, the city was informed of the case under investigation.
    The C.D.C. was able to identify the spores of anthrax, and officials
    were informed of the results early yesterday morning.

    Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani announced the first confirmed case of
    anthrax yesterday morning at NBC.

    He was described by a person who was with him early yesterday as
    being "three feet off the ground" when he learned that the F.B.I.
    had not brought word of the developments to city officials earlier.

    Mr. Mawn acknowledged that investigators revisited the case after
    learning of the concerns of the health officials. "A second
    notification came through to the Department of Health, at which time
    the evidence response people and the F.B.I. also became involved
    with it. It was initially assigned to two agents that just covered
    the lead. And upon that, it was immediately submitted for tests. As
    you know and as the mayor has talked about, those tests were
    initially negative."

    Yesterday, The New York Times received a letter filled with white
    powder that was addressed to a reporter, Judith Miller. The Times
    notified the mayor's office, and city and F.B.I. officials responded
    immediately.  Tests for radioactive and chemical substances were
    negative, and results from a more definitive test for anthrax DNA by
    state and federal labs were expected over the weekend.

    Coordinating the efforts of the various law enforcement and public
    health officials is proving tricky   there have been dozens of bomb
    and other threats around the city since Sept. 11, and the city,
    which investigates each case, cannot inform the public or other
    agencies about each one. Just yesterday, the city heard of about a
    half dozen cases of suspicious powder or envelopes that it is
    investigating, the mayor said.

    "If there was a problem, it was in the way they first investigated
    it," one Police Department official said of the F.B.I.'s
    performance.

    But there was some concern last night among health care experts
    about the delay in the testing. The inability of the agency to
    identify the substance was "not very comforting," said one C.D.C.
    official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "That is a little
    disappointing, to say the least."

    Anthrax spores, if kept under appropriate conditions sealed and
    unexposed to lots of light   can be preserved for years, said Jerome
    M. Hauer, the former director of the Office of Emergency Management
    and currently managing director of Kroll Inc., an investigation
    firm.  He added: "You don't want them sitting around. In this
    environment, you hope there is good information sharing, especially
    when it involves biological agents."


    Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company | Privacy Information

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