Grand jury possible in toxin scare

Tuesday, Feb. 24, 1998 | 9:49 a.m.

The FBI today pressed ahead with its well-publicized investigation into the Las Vegas anthrax scare, despite dropping charges against the two men once thought to have possessed the deadly bacteria.

Sources said prosecutors are considering the possibility of going to a federal grand jury to continue the criminal probe of medical researchers Larry Wayne Harris and William Job Leavitt Jr.

"I can't imagine that they would do that," Kirby Wells, one of Leavitt's lawyers, said today. "It's a total waste of time."

In complicated and high-profile cases such as this, however, it is not uncommon for a grand jury to be used as an investigative tool for prosecutors to sort out evidence.

Charges against Harris, a white supremacist with an interest in germ warfare, and Leavitt, an ex-Mormon bishop and Overton businessman, were dropped Monday, two days after government tests concluded the substance seized from the two men last week was a harmless animal vaccine.

Leavitt's other lawyer, Lamond Mills, said Monday he was told the decision to dismiss the case was made directly by Attorney General Janet Reno in Washington.

But First Assistant U.S. Attorney Howard Zlotnick disputed that claim today.

Zlotnick called the dismissal a "joint decision" by the Justice Department, the U.S. attorney's office and the FBI.

One source said high levels of the FBI and Justice Department in Washington participated in the decision.

Zlotnick refused to discuss the reported plans to take the case to the grand jury.

But the Justice Department released a statement Monday indicating the FBI is continuing to investigate the "nature and extent" of the activities of Harris and Leavitt in Nevada last week.

FBI agents today were poring over evidence seized over the weekend from Leavitt's home and microbiology lab in Overton, as well as materials taken from Harris in his hometown of Lancaster, Ohio.

"It is necessary to conduct further investigation to determine what, if any, charges should most appropriately be brought against the defendants," Assistant U.S. Attorney L.J. O'Neale said in a declaration seeking the dismissal of the charges here Monday.

Earlier Monday, the U.S. attorney in Columbus, Ohio, filed a complaint against Harris, a former lieutenant in the Aryan Nations, charging him with violating probation stemming from his 1995 conviction of fraudulently obtaining bubonic plague toxins.

Harris, 46, who remains behind bars at the Clark County Detention Center, was to appear before U.S. Magistrate Robert Johnston today for a hearing to determine whether to keep him in custody and extradite him back to Ohio.

Prosecutors in Ohio indicated the government might seek to charge Harris in Las Vegas with the lesser crime of threatening to use a biological weapon, rather than possessing a biological agent for use as a weapon.

Assistant Federal Public Defender Michael Kennedy, who represents Harris, told a crush of local and national reporters Monday that his client is "elated" by the dismissal of the charges here.

Kennedy said Harris has insisted all along that his efforts here were aimed at helping Americans defend themselves against germ warfare.

The attorney said he believed FBI agents did not overreach in this case given the scenario they thought they had.

Last Wednesday, agents moved quickly to arrest Harris and Leavitt after another researcher told the agents he suspected the two men were hauling around the lethal form of anthrax.

The FBI has acknowledged that the other researcher, Ronald G. Rockwell, is a two-time convicted felon, but it has defended its reliance on his word.

Rockwell's credibility, however, has been attacked by defense lawyers.

The SUN reported Monday that Rockwell may have tried to involve Leavitt in time travel and UFO projects while attempting to sell him $2 million worth of equipment he claimed could neutralize the anthrax bacteria.

Rockwell, whose medical credentials have been questioned, owns a patent on a discredited centuries-old device, the Rife Regenerator, which claims to kill viruses.

The 47-year-old Leavitt, meanwhile, also appeared before reporters Monday with Mills and Wells.

Leavitt, who has no criminal record and is considered a civic leader in Moapa Valley, a rural community 65 miles northeast of Las Vegas, again said his faith in God sustained him through his more than 48-hour ordeal in jail. He was released from the county detention center on Saturday, six hours after the FBI disclosed the test results.

Leavitt reiterated statements made on Saturday in which he insisted he had "no ill-feelings whatsoever" toward the FBI.

Asked whether he was contemplating legal action against the government, he replied, "absolutely not."

"It is over. It is done," he said. "I want to get on with my life."

Mills said Leavitt does not plan to make any further statements to the media. He has declined interviews with the television networks and other national news organizations.

"As far as we're concerned, this is it," Mills said. "We hope at the end of this conference -- that's all folks. There's no anthrax out there. There's no danger. There's nothing out there."

Leavitt said his only interest in hiring Harris as a consultant was to "help mankind" by coming up with a vaccine for the deadly anthrax virus.

The Overton man acknowledged for the first time that he was aware Harris had a fraud conviction. But he insisted he did not know it involved the illegal effort to obtain the bubonic plague bacteria.

Leavitt said he personally took Harris to Metro Police to register him as an ex-felon last week.

Both men, he said, were at the police department a couple of hours before FBI agents arrested them Wednesday night at a Green Valley clinic, as they tried to test the equipment Rockwell was selling.

Leavitt said he didn't recall telling Rockwell that he had "military grade" anthrax as alleged last week in an FBI complaint.

And Kennedy said he has found no credible evidence that Harris told another FBI witness that he had enough anthrax in a vial to "wipe out the city."

In its one-page statement, the Justice Department Monday defended the quick response to Rockwell's claims.

"Although the charges have been dropped and government officials are relieved that the anthrax seized from Harris and Leavitt was harmless, the government's actions last week were appropriate under the law and in the interest of public safety," the Justice Department said. "No law enforcement official can afford to ignore such allegations."

Leavitt said he considered himself a "different man" today following his ordeal with the FBI.

"I am much stronger, and I hope the whole incident will make the entire country stronger," he said.

Leavitt volunteered to help educate the government in its battle with infectious diseases.

"I would be more than happy to sit down and have them ask me any questions," he said.

In the meantime, Leavitt said he planned to stay away from his biological research until the investigation into the anthrax scare subsides.

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