FBI offers reward for info on anthrax terrorists

WASHINGTON —  The FBI and U.S. Postal Service today offered an award up to $1 million for information leading to the arrest of those who sent anthrax through the mail. Investigators continued to link the various incidents through evidence.

“Once again we call upon the public to assist us in this fight against terrorism,” FBI director Robert Mueller said in a joint announcement with Postmaster General Jack Potter.

Mueller said the reward would be for “information leading to the arrest and conviction for terrorist acts of mailing anthrax.”

Potter urged citizens to use commonsense caution if they receive suspicious packages, and said his service was mailing postcards to all mail recipients with guidelines. “The best defense that we have right now is an educated American public,” he said.

Authorities announced that four people had been charged with federal felonies for anthrax hoaxes. “We intend to prosecute these hoaxes to the fullest extent of the law,” Attorney General John Ashcroft said.

Ashcroft said among those who have been charged was a man who sent talcum powder through the mail, saying it was anthrax.

The announcements came as authorities pressed to identify the source of the anthrax and to find possible links between the cases that have cropped up in Washington, New York and Florida. Five people are confirmed to have anthrax, and authorities were examining a possible sixth case. Many more have tested positive for exposure to the bacterium.

A preliminary match was made between anthrax found at American Media Inc., a tabloid newspaper publisher where one man died from the contamination and another is hospitalized, and anthrax sent to NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw.

Officials at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the strain -- one of hundreds of varieties of anthrax -- occurs naturally and is found domestically in hoofed animals such as cows and deer. Further tests must be done to determine if the strains came from the same source.

The letter to Brokaw was postmarked Sept. 16 from Trenton, N.J. Investigators believe the Florida man who died of anthrax may have contracted the disease from a letter that was destroyed before he became sick. His last day at work was Sept. 26.

Still unknown is whether anthrax found in a letter sent to Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., is the same strain as the Florida and New York material.