Reading the facts of the case above, Hatfill put ample suspicion upon himself. Due to the fact people died and many of his colleagues thought he was the culprit because he had the knowledge, the equipment (which he took possession of no longer used discarded equipment - why would he need such equipment used to make biological agents?), his behavior was odd according to his colleagues, and he had the training to make the anthrax and his travel allowed for the mailings, Hatfill case against the government is weak. If I sat on the jury, I would not award him a dime.
BTW growing anthrax is no big deal. Weaponizing it a big deal.
The equipment was non-functional. He acquired it so he could use it to train troops prior to the invasion of Iraq. He wanted soldiers to know what a biosafety cabinet looked like so they wouldn't bust into some bioweapons lab and trash the place, killing themselves in the process.
After the training of the troops was completed, the biosafety cabinets were destroyed.
He also got into trouble with conspiracy theorists because he built a mockup of a "mobile bioweapons lab." People jumped on it and claimed it was further proof that he had access to a bioweapons lab.
In reality, the mockup was just an empty shell. It contained no equipment on the inside -- except for an airconditioner. It was intended solely to teach troops and Air Force pilots what such a vehicle would look like so they wouldn't blow them up and spread deadly toxins all over the place during the invasion of Iraq.
Hatfill called me five times to discuss this.
No, he did not. This is a fabrication on your part.
And it wasn't "many" of his colleagues that thought he was suspicious, it was only a couple. Unfortunately, those people had big mouths and enough connections to get their voices heard. I still think it was largley due to a political agenda on their part.
Hatfill has already received a financial settlement from Conde Nast/Vanity Fair due to their foolishly printing that article from Don "The Shakespeare Dunce" Foster that outright called him the murderer. And mark my words, Hatfill will be receiving plenty more money from the other guilty parties sooner or later.