Scientist under scrutiny denies anthrax link

Dr. Steven Hatfill makes a public statement Sunday in front of his attorney's office in Alexandria, Virginia.

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (CNN) -- Former federal scientist Steven Hatfill said Sunday federal authorities are wrong to tie him to last year's deadly anthrax mailings and that he is appalled that his years of service had "been turned against me in connection with the search for the anthrax killer."

"I am a loyal American and I love my country," Hatfill said. "I had nothing to do in any way, shape or form with the mailing of these anthrax letters. It is terribly wrong for anyone to contend or suggest that I have."

Sunday was the first time Hatfill publicly addressed his identification as a potential suspect in last fall's mailing of anthrax to media outlets and congressional offices, which killed five people.

Law enforcement officials have said Hatfill is one of 20 or 30 "persons of interest" in the anthrax investigation, but Hatfill and his attorney said that the scrutiny -- and apparent leaks to the media -- have made the 48-year-old scientist a top suspect in the public eye.

CNN NewsPass VIDEO Former U.S. Army researcher Dr. Steven Hatfill says he's not responsible for the deadly anthrax mailings in 2001 (August 11) Play video    Complete coverage

"I do not object to being considered a subject of interest," the one-time bioweapons researcher said, "but I do object to an investigation characterized by outrageous official statements and leaks to the media."

Hatfill apparently drew investigators' attention because of a two year-stint at the U.S. Army's bioweapons facility at Fort Detrick, Maryland, where he had potential access to anthrax allegedly from the same strain of bacteria as that sent through the mail.

But Hatfill said he worked on viruses, not bacteria, and that he spent his career working to develop ways to combat bioweapons.

"I am extremely proud of my service with the government and my efforts to help safeguard ... against the scourge of biological warfare," Hatfill said.

"I have never, ever worked with anthrax in my life," he said. "No one has come up with a shred of evidence that I had anything to do with the anthrax letters."

The scientist stood outside his attorney's Alexandria office and read a prepared statement. Hatfill said he had cooperated fully with investigators who, he acknowledged, have the right to pursue every lead in their search for the killer.

"But that does not give them the right to smear me and gratuitously make a wasteland of my life in the process," a determined Hatfill said.

"I will not be railroaded."

Hatfill said he willingly agreed to have the FBI search his home, his car, and a storage area. "The FBI agents promised me that the search would be quiet, private and very low-key. It did not turn out that way."

He said the news media descended upon his apartment "within minutes" of his agreeing to the search. When agents returned to his home last week with a warrant, he said, that search was "another media event."

In response to Hatfill's statement, FBI spokesman Chris Murray said, "The FBI does not alert the news media to the service of search warrants."

Hatfill said, after another researcher "saw fit to discuss me as a suspect in the anthrax case in a meeting with FBI agents and Senate staffers," the FBI revisited him. Hatfill identified his accuser as Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, a woman he said he has never met but with whom he disagrees over whether the United States should sign a biological weapons treaty.

Rosenberg, a leading bioweapons researcher and a professor at the State University of New York at Purchase, denied Hatfill's accusations in a statement to CNN.

"I have never mentioned specifically any names, not to the FBI, and not to Senate committee staffers whom I met with in June. I have never said anything that only pointed to one given person. If anyone see parallels, that is their opinion," she said.

Hatfill said that he, like all scientists working at the federal lab, had been vaccinated against anthrax infection, but had received no boosters since 2000.

"I'm as susceptible to anthrax infection as the rest of you," he said.

Hatfill said that he lost his security clearance and his federal research job because of the investigation, and has been placed on administrative leave from his new position with Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.

In addition, Hatfill accused FBI agents of "manhandling" his girlfriend during a search of her apartment and telling her that he "killed five people and her life would never be the same again."

Before Hatfill's statement, longtime friend Pat Clawson declared that Hatfill was "not the biological equivalent of the Unabomber."

Hatfill's attorney, Victor Glasberg, said he would file a formal complaint regarding leaks about the investigation.

Glasberg said a television network had obtained a copy of a novel Hatfill was writing -- about biological warfare -- that could have only come from the scientist's computer, which federal authorities have confiscated.

Glasberg said he believed the leaks were an attempt to show that investigators were making progress in the 10-month anthrax investigation, and compared the case to that of Richard Jewell, the security guard originally cited in media reports as a prime suspect in the 1996 Olympic Park bombing.

After losing his job and enduring months of media scrutiny, Jewell was exonerated. He settled with several news organizations, including CNN, for unspecified amounts of money.