FBI vehicle hits Hatfill, but he gets the $5 ticket
Scientist being watched in anthrax investigation
By Scott Shane
Sun Staff
May 20, 2003
FBI anthrax investigators’ relentless surveillance of a former Army bioterrorism expert took a bizarre turn Saturday when a vehicle driven by an agent hit Dr. Steven J. Hatfill on a busy Georgetown street - and Hatfill wound up with a $5 ticket.
The driver of the FBI sport utility vehicle, Bryan Blankenship, told police he “drove off, striking” Hatfill, but was not charged, according to a police report. Hatfill was cited for “walking to create a hazard.”
The FBI vehicle, a Dodge Durango, ran over Hatfill’s right foot and knocked him to the pavement on Wisconsin Avenue about 4:30 p.m. Saturday, said Hatfill’s spokesman, Pat Clawson. Clawson said Hatfill had “a goose egg several inches long” on his foot and abrasions on his forehead and was attended to by paramedics at the scene.
Hatfill, who is trained as a medical doctor, refused a ride to the hospital, Clawson said, because he is out of money, has no health insurance and believed no bones were broken.
“He was dazed and out of it for a few minutes, and he’s pretty banged and bruised,” Clawson said. “He’s absolutely enraged. There was nothing about this that constituted legitimate surveillance.”
Hatfill can pay the $5 ticket or contest it in court, said Officer Kenneth Bryson, a spokesman for the Washington Metropolitan Police.
Anthrax subject receives payout $5.82 million
The U.S. settles with Dr. Steven J. Hatfill, whom it targeted after deadly mailings but never arrested.
June 28, 2008|David Willman, Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON — The former Army scientist who was the prime suspect in the deadly 2001 anthrax mailings agreed Friday to take $5.82 million from the government to settle his claim that the Justice Department and the FBI invaded his privacy and ruined his career.
Dr. Steven J. Hatfill, 54, who was called a “person of interest” in the case by then-Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft in 2002, said that label and repeated leaks of investigative details to the media damaged his reputation.