February 23, 1998 at 10:14:35 PST
By Larry Henry
LAS VEGAS SUN
Larry Wayne Harris, who was arrested in Henderson this week after supposedly carrying enough deadly anthrax germ to "wipe out" Las Vegas, has a troubled history with fatal biological material.
Harris also is aligned with a racist, anti-semitic movement that refers to Jews as the "children of Satan" and blacks as "subhuman mud people."
A registered microbiologist who holds art degrees from Ashland University and Ohio State University, Harris, 46, who was born in Richlands, Va., was thrust into national notoriety in 1995.
In May of that year, he was arrested at his Lancaster, Ohio, home with three vials of freeze-dried yersinia pestis, an organism that causes bubonic plague.
The bubonic plague killed one-fourth of Europe in the 1300s but now can be treated with antibodies.
Harris' samples, which were inert, were in the glove compartment of his Subaru. None of the vials had been opened.
Harris reportedly paid $240 for the samples and received them via Federal Express from American Type Culture Collection, a lab in Rockville, Md.
Harris allegedly told scientists in Maryland that the samples were for his own lab, which he said had approval from Ohio authorities, and was called Small Animal Microbiology Laboratory.
However, Ohio law enforcement officials discovered that Harris did not have a lab license, and he was arrested.
Harris was charged with three counts of mail fraud and one count of wire fraud. The wire charge was based on phone calls and faxes to the Maryland lab.
Harris plea bargained in December 1995 to one count of wire fraud. In April 1997, he was placed on 18 months of probation and ordered to perform 200 hours of community service. The other three charges were dismissed.
Harris told authorities he needed the samples for research on his self-published book, "Biological Warfare: A Major Threat to North America."
The 131-page book is available on the Internet for $28.50.
In the book, Harris tells of a happenstance meeting at Ohio State University in 1991 between him and another student, an Iraqi woman named Mariam, who became a friend.
Harris wrote that he learned from Mariam that Iraq and other Middle East countries planned to spread biological disease in the United States.
Harris has said germ-carrying rats and aircraft could be used to spread disease.
In the book, Harris says the Cessna 150 is an ideal aircraft for biological attacks. That is the same model that crashed into the White House in 1995.
Harris, who claimed to have worked for the CIA from 1985 to 1990, discusses the supposed Middle East plot on a $4 cassette called "Germ Warfare in the U.S."
Harris has maintained that his book and other materials are instructions on how to survive biological attacks.
At a fair in Ohio to promote his book, Harris told people at his booth to take antibodies against the bubonic plague, which could kill millions.
"I am a scientist," he has said. "I am absolutely of no harm to anyone. I never, never intended to hurt anyone."
Mark Potok, a spokesman for the Southern Poverty Law Center, which operates Klanwatch, has monitored Harris because of his affiliation with Aryan Nations and other white supremacist groups.
While Ohio police were searching Harris' home in 1995, they discovered a certificate stating that Harris was a lieutenant in the Aryan Nations, a white separatist organization founded in prisons and based in Hayden Lake, Idaho.
Tim Bishop, a national organizer for Aryan Nations, told an Ohio newspaper that Harris joined the group in 1994.
Harris told The Columbus Dispatch before an appearance in Lancaster Municipal Court that he was a member of the Christian Identity Church, a pseudo-religious sect that preaches neo-Nazi beliefs.
Potok said Christian Identity, which is the Aryan Nations' church, has about 50,000 members and believes that "Jews are the biological children of Satan and blacks are subhuman mud people."
The Rev. Richard Butler of Christian Identity told the Lancaster Eagle-Gazette in 1995 that the Bible wants white people to "be separate and to have domination over the earth."
"You don't put chicken hawks in with chickens," Butler said, "and you don't put a fox in with rabbits. You have to separate them as God intended."
In May 1995, Ohio television station WBNS-TV reported that Harris was questioned in 1993 about perceived threats toward President Clinton.
It also reported that Harris, a former well and septic tank inspector, was a member of the National Alliance, a white supremacist group that is believed to have influenced Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.
Harris has claimed he no longer belongs to the Aryan Nations, but one official told the SUN Harris is not a member because he was kicked out.
"They don't like their members going to prison," the official said. "It's bad PR."
Potok said Harris is a concern also because of his book on germ warfare and his history with biological agents.
The FBI complaint issued after his arrest in Henderson said Harris in the summer of 1997 "told a group of plans to place a 'globe' of bubonic plague toxins in a New York subway station, where it would be broken by a passing subway train, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths."
The complaint also said Harris displayed a vial of military-strength anthrax in room 921 of the Gold Coast hotel-casino and said it could "wipe out the city."
Potok said Harris since 1995 has traveled the country inoculating his friends against anthrax.
Harris' web-based book on apocalyptic warfare urges people to stockpile antibiotics. One doctor said that Harris' recommendation for tetracycline, an antibiotic effective for treating anthrax, is five times the normal dose.
The American Society of Microbiology said today it "expects that all members will use their knowledge and skills for the advancement of human welfare and deplores the misuse of microbiological sciences."
Harris is a "registered microbiologist," meaning he is certified by the National Registry of Microbiologists under ASM.
According to the ASM requirements, Harris meets the minimum level of knowledge and has taken a minimum number of microbiology courses with a year's experience in a laboratory.
To become registered, Harris passed the ASM exam.
That shows Harris knows basic microbiology and his way around a lab, ASM spokesman Jim Sleewa said today.
Source: Las Vegas SUN and wire reports
Sound's like ol' Larry is a few megabits short of a full T-3 line.
And now he's saying he worked for the CIA. Isn't that SPECIAL?
Not unreasonable. Normal doses kill normal bacteria, but weaponized anthrax is manufactured to be resistant to antibiotics.