Not to mention the $5.8 million awarded in the lawsuit....
Excerpt:
STEPHEN ENGELBERG: Many people in the FBI would say this was probably one of the low points.
BRIAN ROSS, ABC News: The team includes this dog, named Lucy, from the Long Beach, California, Police Department, and two others from California, Tinkerbell and Knight.
NARRATOR: The anthrax letters had an unusual scent. The FBI said the dogs picked up that scent at the exact same place, Steven Hatfill's apartment.
BRIAN ROSS: —former U.S. government scientist Steven Hatfill—
STEPHEN ENGELBERG: To the people who saw him as a viable suspect, the dogs were just one more piece of a matrix of circumstantial evidence.
NARRATOR: Then after a tip, the FBI thought the bloodhounds had found the location of Hatfill's bio-weapons lab, supposedly hidden near a pond in the Maryland woods.
BRAD GARRETT: It seemed a bit of a stretch that you could track an odor, or a smell, to a location months and months and months after someone had been to a particular spot by a lake. But you know, they believed that that had some real potential.
NARRATOR: Investigators had come to believe Hatfill somehow had produced the deadly anthrax powder in an improvised underwater lab.
NEWSCASTER: Engineers are draining a Maryland pond today—
NEWSCASTER: —draining a pond looking for evidence related to the anthrax attacks.
NEWSCASTER: Almost a million and a half gallons—
NEWSCASTER: The pond is a huge undertaking that will take three to four weeks and cost of about a quarter million dollars.
VICTOR GLASBERG: I think the draining of the pond is the most outstanding example of really loony-tunes behavior, instead of whatever kind of deliberate investigatory techniques should have been used.
HENRY HEINE: In one of these ponds, they found a plastic box with a hole in the side of it. And they brought it down and they showed it to everybody. And they said, you know, "What do you think this is?"
NARRATOR: They thought they might finally have something. They took it to USAMRIID, the Army lab.
JOHN EZZELL:: He brought down this plastic container the FBI had brought— they had delivered to USAMRIID.
NARRATOR: Dr. John Ezzell, who worked at the lab, was also a consultant for the FBI. His speech is now impaired by Parkinson's disease. Ezzell had bad news for the FBI.
JOHN EZZELL: To me, it looked like some sort of version of a turtle trap. Dave Wilson from the FBI turns around and starts walking out of the lab and says, "My God, you mean I just spent $20,000 today on a turtle trap?" And I said, "Well, you may have."
VICTOR GLASBERG: A turtle trap. Yes, they did find a turtle trap. We were chuckling. But of course, for Steve, it's a bittersweet chuckle because he's still on the receiving end of the joke until his name is clear.
NARRATOR: It would take nearly five years before Hatfill was officially cleared. He won a $5.8 million judgment against the United States government for invasion of privacy.
https://www.pbs.org/…/frontl…/film/anthrax-files/transcript/
Excerpt:
STEPHEN ENGELBERG: Many people in the FBI would say this was probably one of the low points.
BRIAN ROSS, ABC News: The team includes this dog, named Lucy, from the Long Beach, California, Police Department, and two others from California, Tinkerbell and Knight.
NARRATOR: The anthrax letters had an unusual scent. The FBI said the dogs picked up that scent at the exact same place, Steven Hatfill's apartment.
BRIAN ROSS: —former U.S. government scientist Steven Hatfill—
STEPHEN ENGELBERG: To the people who saw him as a viable suspect, the dogs were just one more piece of a matrix of circumstantial evidence.
NARRATOR: Then after a tip, the FBI thought the bloodhounds had found the location of Hatfill's bio-weapons lab, supposedly hidden near a pond in the Maryland woods.
BRAD GARRETT: It seemed a bit of a stretch that you could track an odor, or a smell, to a location months and months and months after someone had been to a particular spot by a lake. But you know, they believed that that had some real potential.
NARRATOR: Investigators had come to believe Hatfill somehow had produced the deadly anthrax powder in an improvised underwater lab.
NEWSCASTER: Engineers are draining a Maryland pond today—
NEWSCASTER: —draining a pond looking for evidence related to the anthrax attacks.
NEWSCASTER: Almost a million and a half gallons—
NEWSCASTER: The pond is a huge undertaking that will take three to four weeks and cost of about a quarter million dollars.
VICTOR GLASBERG: I think the draining of the pond is the most outstanding example of really loony-tunes behavior, instead of whatever kind of deliberate investigatory techniques should have been used.
HENRY HEINE: In one of these ponds, they found a plastic box with a hole in the side of it. And they brought it down and they showed it to everybody. And they said, you know, "What do you think this is?"
NARRATOR: They thought they might finally have something. They took it to USAMRIID, the Army lab.
JOHN EZZELL:: He brought down this plastic container the FBI had brought— they had delivered to USAMRIID.
NARRATOR: Dr. John Ezzell, who worked at the lab, was also a consultant for the FBI. His speech is now impaired by Parkinson's disease. Ezzell had bad news for the FBI.
JOHN EZZELL: To me, it looked like some sort of version of a turtle trap. Dave Wilson from the FBI turns around and starts walking out of the lab and says, "My God, you mean I just spent $20,000 today on a turtle trap?" And I said, "Well, you may have."
VICTOR GLASBERG: A turtle trap. Yes, they did find a turtle trap. We were chuckling. But of course, for Steve, it's a bittersweet chuckle because he's still on the receiving end of the joke until his name is clear.
NARRATOR: It would take nearly five years before Hatfill was officially cleared. He won a $5.8 million judgment against the United States government for invasion of privacy.
https://www.pbs.org/…/frontl…/film/anthrax-files/transcript/
