Former anthrax suspect returned to Ohio

Tuesday, March 3, 1998 | 10:05 a.m.

Larry Wayne Harris, one of two men arrested in the anthrax scare, was transported Monday to Ohio to face probation violation charges, the U.S. Marshals Service confirmed.

Deputy U.S. Marshal Rod Robinson would not say when the 46-year-old microbiologist would be arriving in Columbus, Ohio, for a preliminary hearing on the probation charges.

A hearing must be held by Friday.

Harris and another man, William Job Leavitt Jr., of Overton, were arrested by FBI agents Feb. 18 after agents received word the two men were carrying around the deadly germ anthrax.

Tests on the substance seized from the men later disclosed a harmless veterinary vaccine.

Charges against both men were dropped Feb. 23, but the U.S. attorney's office opened a grand jury investigation two days later into the scare that attracted the world's media to Las Vegas.

Harris, a former white supremacist, has an interest in germ warfare. In 1995, he was convicted of fraudulently obtaining bubonic plague toxins in the mail.

Harris has been accused of violating the terms of his probation during his visit to Las Vegas.