US Settles Suit with Anthrax Victim's Family for $2.5 Million
The federal government has agreed to pay $2.5 million to the family of the first person killed in the 2001 anthrax letter attacks.
The suit had alleged that the Army hadn’t done enough to secure its supply of the anthrax used in the attacks, which were eventually blamed on a civilian scientist at the Army’s biological research laboratory at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Md., the New York Times and CNN report.
Robert Stevens, a photo editor at American Media Inc., a tabloid publisher in Boca Raton, Fla., was the first of five people killed in the 2001 attacks, in which anthrax powder was sent in letters to various media organizations and two U.S. Senators.
The FBI eventually concluded that the letters were sent by Bruce E. Ivins, a microbiologist at the Army lab who worked on anthrax vaccines. Ivins, who had a history of mental illness, killed himself in 2008 as prosecutors prepared to indict him in the attacks.
Richard D. Schuler, a lawyer for Stevens’ widow, Maureen, and three grown children, said documents and testimony in the case showed minimal vetting of government scientists who worked with anthrax, weak laboratory security and haphazard inventory controls at the time of the attacks.
“What we found was a horror show, basically,” he said.
In a stipulation filed with the settlement, the government admitted no blame for the attacks. It also said attorneys fees for Stevens’ family would come out of the settlement money, at no more than 25 percent of the total.
