M. Latif: Are you familiar with this case? Note the location of the right-wing plotters. M2
Two men arrested with anthrax
Copyright © 1998 Nando.net
Copyright © 1998 The Associated Press
How anthrax kills
LAS VEGAS (February 19, 1998 7:30 p.m. EST nando.net) -- Two men were charged Thursday with possessing the deadly germ anthrax for use as a weapon. The FBI said one bragged in Las Vegas he had enough to "wipe out the city" and last year laid out a plan to attack New York City subways.
The men were arrested in suburban Henderson late Wednesday as they were allegedly trying to arrange a lab test of the substance. Their beige Mercedes, sealed in plastic, was hauled off to an airbase for tests to see whether the material carried inside was the germ warfare agent.
An informant said one of the men told him he had "military grade anthrax" in flight bags in the trunk of the Mercedes, according to an FBI affidavit. The informant said he saw eight to 10 bags marked "biological" in the trunk.
Larry Wayne Harris, 46, of Lancaster, Ohio, and William Leavitt, 47, of Las Vegas and Logandale, Nev., appeared before a federal magistrate Thursday afternoon.
But Bobby Siller, special agent in charge of the Las Vegas FBI office, told a news conference before the affidavit was released there was no indication the men had any target.
The FBI said the pair were trying to arrange to buy the informant's testing equipment for $2 million up front and another $18 million later.
Siller repeatedly reassured residents of the Las Vegas area that there was no contamination and no danger.
Harris, identified by the FBI as a member of the Aryan Nations, was previously given probation after pleading guilty to illegally obtaining bubonic plague bacteria through the mail in 1995. He is also author of a self-published book called "Bacteriological Warfare: A Major Threat to North America."
Leavitt, who has no criminal record, owns a microbiology lab in rural Logandale, about 60 miles north of Las Vegas, and another in Frankfurt, Germany, according to the affidavit prepared by FBI Special Agent John H. Hawken.
The affidavit said a confidential informant called the FBI Wednesday to say he was a research scientist and had been contacted by Harris and Leavitt, who asked him to use some of his equipment to test vials of the bacterium Bacillus anthracis, which causes anthrax.
Over the next 12 hours, the informant kept in touch with the FBI and at least one phone call was tapped. The document outlined a meeting of Harris and Leavitt with another man at the Gold Coast Hotel.
The man, who was neither identified nor charged, was later tracked down by the FBI and related their conversation.
"Harris had shown him what appeared to be a vial, which was wrapped in cardboard and stated that it contained anthrax," the affidavit said. "Harris held the vial in his hand and further stated that there was enough there to 'wipe out the city."'
Anthrax is an infectious disease that usually afflicts only animals, especially cattle and sheep. But anthrax spores can be produced in a dry form suitable for weapons and can be fatal to humans even in microscopic amounts.
Anthrax can also be used in germ warfare; many of the troops who fought in the Persian Gulf War were inoculated for the bacteria.
In Washington, D.C., Attorney General Janet Reno briefed President Clinton by telephone on what the government knows about the case and what was being done.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which publishes the quarterly newsletter Intelligence Report about such groups, Harris was an Aryan Nations member at the time of the plague case, said spokesman Mark Potok.
In Hayden Lake, Idaho, Aryan Nations founder Richard Butler denied Harris was a member of his Christian Identity, a white-separatist sect.
Last year, Harris pleaded guilty to a count of fraud after he was accused of illegally obtaining bubonic plague bacteria through the mail from a laboratory. He said he never intended to hurt anyone and was sentenced to 18 months on probation.
Harris was arrested in May 1995 after a Rockville, Md., laboratory sent three vials of the freeze-dried, inactive bacteria to his home in Lancaster, Ohio.
Even after pleading guilty to the charge, Harris maintained he did nothing wrong. He said he wanted the bacteria for research for his book.
"I am a scientist. I am absolutely of no harm to anyone. I never, never intended to hurt anyone," he said then.
By ROBERT MACY, Associated Press Writer
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