Interview w/ Adamovicz

BY DAVID SALTONSTALL and JAMES GORDON MEEK DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Saturday, August 2nd 2008, 6:32 PM
Mitchell/AP

FBI and local law enforcement closed the building which houses the offices of several supermarket tabloids after the Anthrax virus was found in an employee's nose and on a computer keyboard.

The FBI had expected Bruce Ivins to plead guilty in the anthrax case, but those who knew him are doubtful, and Ivins' suicide made it unlikely that the truth will come out.


After years of bungled leads and investigative missteps - including the $5.8 million it cost feds to settle a lawsuit with an earlier target of suspicion, Ivins' colleague - the FBI and federal prosecutors took their time to build a damning file on the anthrax vaccine specialist.
"The agents kept this close-held," a counterterrorism official briefed on details of the Ivins probe told the Daily News on Saturday. "They took their time until they had enough evidence to completely overwhelm Ivins, and they expected him to plead guilty."

After Ivins committed suicide, the acknowledged "developments" in the "Amerithrax" attacks that killed five people in the months after 9/11. It did not mention Ivins.

Former Senate Democratic leader , whose office received a poisoned letter in 2001, said Saturday that it was time for answers.

"It's been seven years; there's a lot of unanswered questions, and I think the American people deserve to know more than they do today," he said.

The former head of the lab where Ivins worked also says it's time for the FBI to lay its evidence on the table.

Retired Army Lt. Col. Jeffrey Adamovicz told The News that the FBI's probe into the 2001 anthrax killings had upended the work of the lab by turning scientists into suspects - and pushed his pal over the edge.

"I just cannot see that Bruce would in any way, shape or form be responsible for something like that," he said. "I'd like to see these charges substantiated, because just like [with] Dr. Hatfill, there could be nothing to these allegations."

He said the FBI has created a psychologically toxic atmosphere for scientists at Fort Detrick.
"We were there processing information for agents and then one day they turned around and treated us all like suspects," he said. The agents' criteria for additional suspicion was "who's working the most overtime," said Adamovicz, who also was questioned by the feds.

Adamovicz said he last saw Ivins about three weeks ago and he seemed "fine." Asked about court documents alleging Ivins recently threatened to kill people, Adamovicz expressed bafflement.

"It is disturbing if that is true, but I would like to see that clarified," he said.

Adamovicz described his friend as a diligent worker but also an "eccentric" who always could be counted on to pen a poem or compose a song for a departing co-worker.

"The Bruce I knew," Adamovicz said, "would not have anything to do with this."