Feb 22, 2009 8:15 am US/Eastern
Boca Raton Publisher Targeted In Anthrax Hoax
BOCA RATON (CBS4) ―
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The AMI building in Boca Raton was target in 2001 in an anthrax Attack. The building was reopened in 2007 after years of decontamination.
CBS
Investigators are trying to determine who sent a suspicious letter to a Boca Raton publishing company that was targeted in 2001 in a deadly anthrax attack.
Friday the offices of American Media Inc., which publishes the National Inquirer, the Sun, Star magazine and other grocery store tabloids, were evacuated for about 45 minutes after a letter containing a white powder arrived at the company. Police were able to determine the powder was harmless.
Sun photo editor Bob Stevens, 63, died in October 2001 was the first fatality from the anthrax attacks that killed four others and harmed 17 from Florida to Connecticut. The letters containing anthrax powder were sent on the heels of the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and turned up at congressional offices, newsrooms and elsewhere, leaving a deadly trail through post offices on the way. The powder killed five, sent numerous victims to hospitals and caused near panic in many locations.
The man suspected of sending the anthrax laced letters, former Army scientist Bruce Ivins, committed suicide in 2008.
Ivins worked at the Army's biological warfare defense labs at Fort Detrick, Md., for 35 years until his death. He was one of the government's leading scientists researching vaccines and cures for anthrax exposure. But he also had a long history of homicidal threats, according to investigators.
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