Hatfill strikes back in anthrax case (Don Foster sued)

NBC ^ | 10/04/04 | Jim Popkin

[TrebleRebel]

For more than two years, Steven Hatfill has lived life in legal limbo. Publicly branded a 'person of interest" in the anthrax case, he's never been charged with any crime. Now Hatfill is striking back, in a libel lawsuit against one of his many armchair accusers. Court documents show that Hatfill has filed suit against Donald Foster, an English professor at Vassar College who wrote about Hatfill in the October 2003 issue of Vanity Fair. Hatfill claims Foster and other defendants defamed him by leaving 'no doubt in the minds of reasonable readers that he was imputing guilt for the anthrax attacks (as well as some anthrax hoaxes) to Dr. Hatfill." The lawsuit seeks $10 million in damages and, along the way, makes folly of a novel investigative tool called 'literary forensics." In the fall of 2001, someone mailed anthrax-laced letters to two U.S. senators and to a number of media organizations, including NBC News. The finely milled anthrax spores were remarkably buoyant, and five people who inhaled them were killed.

[Peach]

Good! I hope he gets enough money he doesn't care if he can never get his reputation back.

[tracer]

Now he needs to go after the pseudo-expert (Rosenberg, as I recall) on bioterrorism who is turning moldy at a NY state university. Then onto the FBI and its management and agents who tried to frame this guy and defamed him.....

[tracer]

Now he needs to go after the pseudo-expert (Rosenberg, as I recall) on bioterrorism who is turning moldy at a NY state university. Then onto the FBI and its management and agents who tried to frame this guy and defamed him.....

[TrebleRebel]

If you remember, Don Foster came on FR last year and threatened legal action for making fun of his story.

[Shermy]

I'm detacting an Urdu lilt...or is it red white and blue!

Now the Hatfill case is curiously connected to the Jon Benet Ramsey case. This can't get any better!

[Xenalyte]

How? The word "Ramsey" doesn't appear in the story anywhere.

[TrebleRebel]

Will try to get a copy of the lawsuit ASAP. I think Connolly filed it. I wonder who the "other defendents" are?

At last, something new to talk about!

[Shermy]

Yes, FR had it's own Foster v. Jameson battle! It was fascinating. We should find Jameson's page devoted to Foster and link it here.

Then FR got the notice from Vanity Fair to pull the article.

Whatever happened to the case against NYT and Kristof?

[Shermy]

Yes, FR had it's own Foster v. Jameson battle! It was fascinating. We should find Jameson's page devoted to Foster and link it here.

Then FR got the notice from Vanity Fair to pull the article.

Whatever happened to the case against NYT and Kristof?

[TrebleRebel]

Try this link:

http://www.webbsleuths.org/dcforum/DCForumID31/9.html

[Shermy]

Here's Jameson's web page. Her side of the story in the Jameson v. Foster Battle in the Ramsey case.

Don Foster page

Jameson was an FR member.

A year or so ago they battled it out on a threads about Foster's Vanity Fair article. Very interesting. The moderators, understandably, nuked the threads.

[Xenalyte]

But who the hell is Jameson? I don't want to read two other articles to find out why a reference is germane to this thread.

[Shermy]

VANITY FARCE? Hatfill Lawyer Rips Mag’s Anthrax Article

[Shermy]

Briefly, Jameson is close follower of the Ramsey case. She posted a lot on the net, for example, about the ransom note. Jameson takes the position that Mrs. Ramsey is innocent.

Foster conversed with and investigated Jameson's postings. Via his analysis he decided Jameson was Jon Benet's older step brother, and that he might have had a hand in Jon Benet's fate.

Foster contacted Mrs. Ramsey with his urgent findings. Problem was - Jameson was a 30-ish woman.

Later Foster joined up with the prosecution as a language expert. He supplied opinions that Mrs. Ramsey wrote the ransom note. He did not tell the prosecution about his earlier opinion. When exposed this present a problem, to say the least.

That's my immediate recollection. There were news programs at the time that discussed the Jameson/Foster issue.

[Xenalyte]

That is exactly what I needed to know. Many thanks!

[Shermy]

Plus, there's an anaolgy in this case.

Like the Ramsey case, Foster id'd someone else at first. At first he analyzed the anthrax notes and claimed he detected they were likely made by an Arab or Pakistani. Later, he took the position that they were written by a "red, white and blue" American.

[Shermy]

Here's his Vanity Fair piece:

The Message in the Anthrax

[BushisTheMan]

I think the way this man (Hatfill) was treated was horrible. Reminded me of the treatment of the security guard at the Olympics.

The FBI should learn to keep their mouths shut in some cases. Generally I'm an FBI supporter but I don't like this naming before the facts are in.

[libstripper]

The thing that always got to me about the case was the highly weaponized nature of the anthrax. Although anthrax spores are highly lethal, from what I've read it's generally very difficult to turn them into clouds that function almost like a gas. Processing them to achieve that end is something like taking a trunk from an oak tree and turning it into a piece of fine furniture, the difference being that anthrax, when weaponized, tries to kill everybody and contaminate everything, unless it's carefully isolated before release.

Processing and isolation of the substance necessarily requires tremendous knowledge of its properties and equipment that's generally only available to governments and high tech pharmaceutical houses. Although Hatfill might have had the knowledge to do the work, there's no indication that he had uncontrolled access to the type of facilities necessary to weaponize the anthrax and test it to assure that his process resulted in the necessary volatility.

Saddam Husein's Iraq, on the other hand, had both the facilities and scientists. Combined with the Arabic phraseology of the letters, the close proximity of 9/11, and the likelihood that some of the 9/11 perpetrators were suffering from cutaneous anthrax (probably contracted from handling the letters), this has led me to believe the weaponized anthrax was supplied by Iraq and the letters were part of the 9/11 plot.