Posted on 08/06/2004 3:44:56 PM PDT by Shermy
WELLSVILLE -- Despite having three places he was involved in searched by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on Thursday, Dr. Kenneth M. Berry, 46, of Wellsville, was arrested, but on a domestic violence charge in New Jersey.
Point Pleasant Beach (N.J.) Police charged Dr. Berry with four counts of assault and a temporary restraining order was issued by Judge James A. Ligouri.
Agents from the FBI executed a search warrant at two homes in Wellsville Thursday as part of an investigation into "the origin of the anthrax-laced letters mailed in September and October of 2001 which resulted in the deaths of five individuals and serious illnesses to 17 others."
FBI Agents told Wellsville Mayor Bradley Thompson today that they did not find any traces of anthrax during the search. They are going to conduct a few other interviews before they leave town.
FBI spokeswoman Debbie Weierman told the Wellsville Daily Reporter today that the agency was "just there to do searches. I am unable to comment because it's a pending investigation."
While the searches in Wellsville were going on, sources told the Wellsville Daily Reporter that Berry was vacationing with his family at a home owned by his parents in Chadwick Beach in Dover Township, N.J., when the FBI showed up with a search warrant. Dr. Berry and his family allegedly left and went to a restaurant to eat before 9 a.m.
At 1:21 p.m., sources say Dr. Berry got into a fight with his wife and children at the White Sands Motel in Point Pleasant. Point Pleasant Police said one of the family members was injured and needed to be treated at the scene.
Point Pleasant Police received a 911 call of a domestic dispute, but Chatham Township Police Chief Elizabeth Goeckel was at the hotel and with the help of an employee, detained Dr. Berry until police arrived.
"I don't know why she was there, maybe visiting," said Investigating Officer Susan Saccone today. "I interviewed him and I can not discuss the case or his demeanor further until the actual report is complete."
Captain Kevin O'Hara and Officer Kyle Patton took Dr. Berry into custody, where he complained of illness and vomited. Dr. Berry was taken to Brick Hospital in New Jersey where he was treated and returned to police department. He was arraigned and sent to the Ocean County Jail in lieu of $10,000 bail. He reached bail and was released.
Attempts to reach Dr. Berry were unsuccessful, but his father, William C. Berry, said from his home in Newtown, Conn. that the FBI was making his son a scapegoat for a botched investigation.
"Hey, here's a guy being shafted by the FBI," said William C. Berry, a retired financial director who now serves as president of PREEMPT. It's just buying time because they have nothing on anthrax. You are looking at a setup."
The father described Berry as exhausted and upset. He said his son has been interviewed before by the FBI because of his counterterror expertise.
"They have been on him for three years. They have no leads," William Berry said from his farmhouse, near Danbury, Ct.
Dr. Berry is a father of seven who has been married twice. He now teaches emergency room skills at a hospital affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh, his father said. Born in Teaneck, N.J., Dr. Berry moved with his family to Switzerland at age 5. They returned to New Jersey, living in Wayne, and then moved to Connecticut.
The FBI searched in two Wellsville locations. One was a home owned by Dr. Berry on 211 East Pearl St. The other was an apartment on 125 Maple Ave., which he rented before he bought the home on East Pearl Street.
Dr. Berry founded an organization called PREEMPT Medical Counter-Terrorism in 1997. He was the director of the emergency room at Jones Memorial Hospital in Wellsville from December of 1996 to October of 2001. He still lives in Wellsville with his wife and seven children, but works in Pittsburgh and other areas.
Mayor Thompson read a statement from the FBI that said, "The FBI and the U.S. postal inspection service are conducting searches at multiple locations in New York and New Jersey. These searches are related to the FBI's ongoing investigation into the origin of the anthrax-laced letters mailed in September and October of 2001 which resulted in the deaths of five individuals and serious illness to 17 others."
Thompson said FBI Field Agent George W. Gast told him, "The amounts of anthrax they are looking for is a trace amount and nothing anyone has to be concerned about."
The search ended around 10:30 p.m. Thursday.
Weierman said area residents should not be concerned, even though two roads were closed down for hours and police are still not allowing vehicles to drive by Dr. Berry's East Pearl Street home.
"That was just to secure the perimeter of the searches," said Weierman. "That is normal FBI activity when a search is being conducted, especially when the media and general public is aware of it and it becomes a focus of attention. It had nothing to do with health hazards."
Agents wearing purple gloves took several bags, boxes and children's toys from both homes.
Weierman said the FBI contacted the Wellsville Police and the Allegany County Sheriff's Department before starting the searches at 8:30 a.m. Thursday.
"The searches are regarding the anthrax-laced letters from 2001 -- I can't go into background or reasoning. We want to stress there are no health or safety concerns and we contacted the state and local authorities and local health departments," said Weierman.
Helen Evans of the Allegany County Department of Public Health said, "They assured us that there are no anthrax related threats or health issues."
Weierman said there are 30 FBI agents and 13 postal inspectors who only work on this case. In Wellsville, over 30 came in by a Winnebago and several unmarked sport utility vehicles and trucks from Maryland, Pennsylvania and Buffalo. The agents have conducted 5,200 interviews in connection to the anthrax letters.
Dr. Berry currently owns a Cessna P210 plane, friends said. When he first came to Wellsville, he had a push-pull plane, a model with an engine in the front and an engine in the back. Officials at the airport in Wellsville say the Cessna plane has not been there in a year.
According to his Web site, Berry is a bioterrorism and weapons of mass destruction expert. In a 1997 USA Today interview, Berry said: "We ought to be planning to make anthrax vaccine widely available to the population starting in the major cities."
Berry is not originally from Wellsville, but he was charged by New York State Police with felony forgery in 1999. On March 17, 1999, he entered a guilty plea to a violation instead of a misdemeanor. He was accused of signing a fake will of the late Dr. Andrew Colletta, who died in May of 1998 at the age of 46.
At the time, Allegany County District Attorney Terry Parker, who prosecuted the case, said, "Ideally, if he were any other individual who had done this, I would have insisted on a misdemeanor. However, any criminal conviction would have resulted in him losing his medical license and never practicing again. As far as society was concerned, that would not be appropriate ... he does a lot of good for society with what he does."
Last week, the Wellsville Code Enforcement Office sent a violation to Dr. Berry for having two junk cars on his property. Village officials in Wellsville said Berry called and said the vehicles belonged to his daughter's boyfriend and they were going to be removed.
Former Jones Memorial Hospital Chief Operation Officer William DiBerardino said he saw Dr. Berry last week.
"I don't know what to think, this is hard to believe," said DiBerardino. "I talked to him a couple weeks ago at Music on the Lawn, we talked about flying. Most of our conversations seemed to end up about flying because I love flying and he has been flying for years.
"He was different. He was a decent doctor by all accounts, so, how do you explain different?" DiBerardino added.
Dr. Berry's next door neighbor, Bob Kosciewicz said "I last saw him last week ... this is a shock. This is surprising. He's a very quiet person.
"I don't picture him as a terrorist or anything like that," said Kosciewicz. "I understand he has a plane and he flies to where ever. He was on one of those rent-a-doctor deals, and he flew all over the place. I punched up his resume and saw his credentials, it was pretty impressive."
"I don't see him too often because he works other places so often," Kosciewicz continued. "They lived next door for about three years. The family left for vacation, and I thought he had some work in Pittsburgh. But I don't know where he works exactly ... he was different, but I always liked him."
Dr. Berry told DiBerardino he said he was working with the Federal Aviation Administration investigating crashes and that he remembers Dr. Berry teaching courses to emergency rooms on terrorists. Dr. Berry's Web site said he investigated the TWA Flight 800 crash in Long Island.
(The Newark Star-Ledger contributed to this report)
In today's Daily Reporter: Four stories including the full story on the arrest of Dr. Kenneth Berry for allegedly beating up four family members outside a hotel in New Jersey Thursday. Also, the Daily Reporter is working on a major connection with Dr. Berry and the FBI case. For more on this breaking story, see Friday's Daily Reporter, Sunday's Spectator and updates here on www.wellsvilledaily.com.
From the New Jersey Star-Ledger:
FBI searches houses tied to doctor from Jersey
Berry's father says Hatfill and Berry "know each other."
And the Ashbury Park Press:Anthrax case hits home
This morning's FR anthrax thread:
Ping.
How does that read to you?
I must have missed the news item about the FBI apologising to Hatfill.
I was wondering about that myself. No mention of Hatifill. Is he supposed to have worked with this guy?
Well, they could say he's Hatfill's delivery boy to the Princeton mail box.
Or maybe he was the one who fingered Hatfill early on via the BHR rumor campaign.
Something about the news paper quote about the upcoming story leads me to think Berry might have had a hand in the investigation. Too early to tell.
Agreed. Very professional reporting. Not only from the Wellsville Daily Record, but from the Asbury Park Press, as well.
One would hope that this represents work by young reporters, on their way up. Perhaps the profession will cleanse itself yet.
I'm not counting on it, though...
MSM reporters tend to sing their own virtues and cleverness - which is undue.
They also tend to opine and assert, rather than report.
The Wellsville account, in particular, is a superb example of the reporter's craft.
So9
How does the FBI have jurisdiction on a local domestic disturbance?
Was the good doctor assaulting his wife with anthrax?
This looks to me like the FBI's pressure on the doctor is destroying his family life.
the domestic disturbance was not related to the FBI raid. It just happened the same day while they were away from the house that was being raided. The local police made the arrest after a 911 call because Berry slugged his family members at a hotel.
Thanks for the ping.
The rule is: "Walk out the door. Don't hit anyone".
Did the Keystone Kops FBI run out of "leads" on Hatfill?
Sounds like he's cracking.
Normally I'd jump and think (not say) maybe its a sign of "guilt" - but it could be pressure, could be "guilt" about something else.
I'm going to try to keep an eye on the Wellsville Daily Record this weekend if I can.
The connection between Berry the doctor-pilot and Hatfill is going to be very interesting.
While the searches in Wellsville were going on, sources told the Wellsville Daily Reporter that Berry was vacationing with his family at a home owned by his parents in Chadwick Beach in Dover Township, N.J., when the FBI showed up with a search warrant. Dr. Berry and his family allegedly left and went to a restaurant to eat before 9 a.m.
At 1:21 p.m., sources say Dr. Berry got into a fight with his wife and children at the White Sands Motel in Point Pleasant. Point Pleasant Police said one of the family members was injured and needed to be treated at the scene.
I am amazed... the way the press has played this for three years, the FBI was only looking at one guy, Hatfill. The other thirty 'persons of interest' went virtually unmentioned.
Another article said the violence involved his girlfriend. Which was it -- wife or girlfriend?
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