Post Office Closed, Feds Investigate Further
NewsMax.com and CNSNews.com
Tuesday, Oct. 9, 2001
CNSNews.com -- The post office in Deerfield Beach, Fla., has been shut down due to the FBI's Florida anthrax investigation.
The American Media office in Boca Raton received a "weird love letter to Jennifer Lopez" a week before the Sept. 11 attacks. Inside was what was described as a "soapy, powdery substance" and a Star of David charm. The letter was handled by both Bob Stevens and Ernesto Blanco, according to unidentified workers cited by Newsweek. Stevens has died of pulmonary anthrax and Blanco has tested positive for the bacterium.
The FBI is trying to find a summer intern from a Middle Eastern country who worked at the tabloid newspaper The Sun, a publication of American Media.
According to Newsweek, he reportedly sent a strange e-mail to Sun employees, described by one company official as having "a sense of foreboding." The Boca Raton building where The Sun has its offices is closed, and investigators reportedly have found traces of anthrax on a computer keyboard and other surfaces.
One Sun employee, Bob Stevens, died of inhaled anthrax on Friday; a second Sun employee, Ernesto Blanco, has tested positive for exposure to anthrax - he's still in the hospital; and late Monday, health officials in Prince William County, Va., said they were examining the possibility that a third man with connections to The Sun had anthrax poisoning.
Tests results on his illness are expected later Tuesday.
Anyone who has been in the building in recent months is being tested as a precaution. Investigators who at first ruled out terrorism now call this a criminal investigation.
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