MIAMI — The widow of a photo editor who died in the 2001 anthrax attacks insisted in a $50 million federal lawsuit filed years ago that the U.S. government was ultimately responsible for his death.
Now that the FBI is pinning the blame on government scientist Bruce Ivins, the lawsuit brought by Maureen Stevens looks positively clairvoyant.
Robert Stevens was a photo editor at American Media Inc. — publisher of the National Enquirer, Sun and Globe gossip tabloids — when he was exposed to anthrax that was mailed to AMI offices in Boca Raton, Fla. Stevens died Oct. 5, 2001, the first of five people to be killed and 17 others sickened in the anthrax attacks.
Two years later, Maureen Stevens filed her suit. In it, she claims the U.S. government was negligent because it failed to safeguard strains of the deadly anthrax bacteria at the U.S. Army disease research center at Fort Detrick, Md.
If the federal government ultimately names Ivins as the anthrax attack perpetrator, Richard Schuler, Maureen Stevens’ attorney, said the government’s lawyers should drop their long battle and settle the lawsuit.
