New charges filed against anthrax suspect in Ohio

Monday, Feb. 23, 1998 | 1:24 a.m.

Larry Wayne Harris, 46, of Lancaster, Ohio, violated probation by threatening to possess anthrax for use as a weapon, the U.S. attorney's office in Columbus said.

He also violated an order prohibiting him from doing any bacteria studies on his own and misrepresented himself in an unrelated case as being associated with the CIA, U.S. Attorney Sharon Zealey said.

Harris and William Leavitt Jr. were arrested last week in Nevada and charged with felony counts of possessing the biological agent anthrax for use as a weapon. However, those charges could be reduced or thrown out now that FBI tests found the material seized from the men was a safe anthrax vaccine rather than military-grade anthrax capable of causing widespread deaths.

FBI Special Agent David A. Stout, in an affidavit attached to a probation report on Harris, said he had "reason to believe" that authorities in Las Vegas were amending their complaint to charge Harris with threatening to possess a biological agent for use as a weapon.

Ohio authorities also said today that substances found in Harris' Lancaster home in a search last week uncovered only non-lethal bacteria, including an anthrax spore vaccine.

Leavitt, a civic leader in his southern Nevada town, was released from jail on his recognizance. A detention hearing was scheduled for this afternoon in Las Vegas for Harris.

Harris will not be returned to Ohio until the Nevada case is resolved or he is released on bond, Ms. Zealey said.

If convicted of the charge filed today, Harris could be sentenced to five years in prison.

Harris, a microbiologist and alleged member of the Aryan Nations, was put on probation after a 1995 conviction for illegally obtaining bubonic plague bacteria through the mail. Terms of the probation barred Harris from "conducting any experiments with or obtaining any infectious diseases, bacteria or germs, except at approved laboratories in conjunction with verified employment," Ms. Zealey's office said in a statement.

On Sunday, FBI agents removed boxloads of materials from Leavitt's home in the farming community of Logandale, about 50 miles northeast of Las Vegas.

It was not known what was taken. FBI agents at the scene declined to comment. FBI officials said over the weekend only that their investigation was ongoing.

Leavitt's attorney, Lamond Mills, called the search "a fishing expedition."

"I think they're embarrassed, and I think they're looking for anything they can find to bring charges against Bill Leavitt," Mills said.

The arrests of Leavitt and Harris on Wednesday in Henderson, Nev., just outside Las Vegas, triggered a nationwide scare about biological weapons. The fears were only heightened by U.S. officials' weighing of a military strike against Iraq for refusing to let United Nations investigators look for some of the very same kind of weapons.

Leavitt's attorneys contend the former head of the chamber of commerce was apolitical. They say he was planning to use the material to test an unorthodox disease-killing machine he was considering buying for $2 million from a man who later tipped off the FBI.

That informant, Ronald Rockwell, has said he turned in Leavitt and Harris last week when Leavitt claimed to possess the deadly anthrax bacteria, which could kill thousands of people. Leavitt's attorneys said Rockwell is a con artist who double-crossed the two men when the deal to buy the machine turned sour.