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)
Is Rosenberg still giving briefings to congressional staffers & the FBI or was that a one-time deal?
Here's what I think we would find ( If we were privy to the details !):The good doctor may be into spousal abuse,and his long-suffering victim may have blown the whistle on him.
The bit about the forged deed does NOT suggest high moral character;but involvement with anthrax ????????
"Did the *Keystone Kops* FBI run out of "leads" on Hatfill?"
Not funny! The WOT is nothing to be sarcastic about!
I think they're going to pin it on Richard Jewell.
Thanks for the ping!
Looks like a 'Honey-specialty-trap' operation.......must be some real 'deep' stuff going on here.....
Lotsa-Fog......
/sarcasm
I've noticed this about alot of people who commit one or two serious crimes...and they really start to stress out. Usually it relates back to the major crime they committed. I'll even make this comment which some folks may object to...Mr. Hacking out of Utah...who murdered his wife...I don't think he started out with her as number one. I think he has committed at least one other murder prior to this one...and the stress became part of his lie.
Sorry, but when the get there, the orders come from the TOP DOWN. Could hope for viable media competition.
Lots of coinkydinks -- Berry left Wellsville Hospital in October 2001 to work in Pittsburgh? Not what I'd call a hop, skip or jump from upstate NY. Instead of recording statements of surprise from the Wellsville Hospital CEO, I would think it more appropriate to ask WHY Berry no longer works there, and why he quit when he did (the timing is more than a bit relevant).
Then we have another neighbor saying Berry told him that he works with the FAA "investigating crashes" -- an enterprising reporter should be able to check that one out fairly easily.
And then when the family is hustled out so that their home might be thoroughly searched, he lashes out at them. Did a family member suggest that Daddy is a terrorist? Did he take especial umbrage at that? (If one of my family members suggested that I was a terrorist, I would either laughingly or very seriously be able to deny it with no rise of emotion on my part.)
Maybe this is Hatfill's lucky day.
Helms: FBI owes Berry big-time apology; Pastor calls Dr. Berry a 'national treasure'
By JOHN ANDERSON/Daily Reporter
WELLSVILLE -- As Pastor Richard "Dick" Helms watches the coverage of the FBI investigation into his friend Dr. Kenneth Berry, he is shocked that anyone could imply Dr. Berry would be connected to deadly anthrax mailings.
The weekend after Sept. 11, 2001, Helms married Dr. Berry and his wife at the Knights Creek Church wedding chapel where he was ministering at the time.
The FBI said they searched Dr. Berry's house Thursday on East Pearl Street in Wellsville and his old apartment on Maple Avenue "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." Dr. Berry also had a summer home in New Jersey owned by his father searched, his car at the airport in Pittsburgh and an apartment he once lived in there as well. The FBI has not said if they found any traces of anthrax and they have not charged Dr. Berry in connection with anthrax.
Dr. Berry founded an organization called PREEMPT Medical Counter-Terrorism in 1997. He filed a provisional patent for a system in October 2000 and filed the actual patent application Sept. 28, 2001, 10 days after the first anthrax letters were postmarked. He touted the system as an effective way to respond to bioterrorism attacks.
Helms is the Webmaster for the PREEMPT Web site.
"They didn't find anything and they wont find anything," said Helms. "If there was anyone more dedicated to protecting the American people from biochemical terrorism, I do not know who it would be. He developed the protocol and procedures before it was fashionable. He did the training for medical and first responders -- and he did it all with little or no reimbursement -- a lot of this out of his own pocket.
"Hey, this man cares!" Helms added.
Dr. Berry was the director of the emergency room at Jones Memorial Hospital in Wellsville from December of 1996 to October of 2001. He has worked at a hospital in Pittsburgh, commuting by plane while living in Wellsville. He was married and had seven children from two relationships.
On Thursday, Dr. Berry and his family went to breakfast in New Jersey. When they returned, the FBI was searching the summer home. When the family went to a nearby hotel, a fight broke out, according to police. Dr. Berry was charged with four counts of domestic abuse and a restraining order was placed on him from seeing his family.
"I can not even comprehend or imagine the stress they are going through and it's a mixed family to begin with," said Helms. "I am very upset that has become part of the story. Ken is a super guy, he cares, you have to get to know him. There is absolutely no way he could have done this. I have two words to summarize this whole thing: absolutely absurd."
Helms does not see how Dr. Berry can go back to work at any hospital or work in his chosen field of counter terrorism.
"The FBI owes him an apology, big-time," said Helms. "They harmed him and it looks like they harmed his family. I like both the agents who are primaries in this area -- they also questioned me, because I am a Webmaster for Preempt.org."
Helms said the Web site has not been updated in a while. Not many people in Wellsville have said they were close friends with Dr. Berry, and many neighbors really didn't know him. But Helms said that is not unusual.
"He worked at the hospital he worked in counter terrorism. He didn't have time to make a lot of friends, but the ones he did make are very loyal," said Helms. "You won't find a lot of (people who were) friends with Ken Berry ... and ones he work with call him an S.O.B., but they call me that, too! Anyone who has anyone who worked for someone will have something bad said about them."
Helms said Dr. Berry cold not be tied to mailing out anthrax letters in 2001.
"Want a practical reason? He was getting ready to get married!" Helms says emphatically.
Helms also defends Dr. Berry's character.
"I think they have damaged his reputation to the point the United States has lost a wonderful asset," said Helms. "He was a true American asset, if not a national treasure.
"He's a little unusual but most brilliant people are different. And he's different," Helms continued. "You get underneath that and he's got a heart the size of Texas for an American."
http://www.wellsvilledaily.com/articles/2004/08/10/local_news/news01.txt
"The weekend after Sept. 11, 2001, Helms married Dr. Berry and his wife at the Knights Creek Church wedding chapel where he was ministering at the time."
Did they honeymoon in a Princeton dorm room across the street from the mailbox? Kinda doubt it.
Maybe that's why they apparently framed Dr. Berry. The FBI does NOT appreciate anyone making waves about TWA Flight 800.
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