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Anthrax Packets Sent to National Newspaper Publishing Company

Anthrax hoax packet sent to local paper; man jailed

Hazardous materials team members in protective suits walked toward the employee entrance of The San Diego Union-Tribune building yesterday. The entrance was blocked for about three hours during the anthrax investigation. Marc M. Keyser, shown Sept. 2, 1998, outside a Sacramento post office, was jailed yesterday in an anthrax hoax that stretched across the country.

The FBI arrested a Sacramento man yesterday on suspicion of mailing more than 120 fake anthrax packages around the country, primarily to news organizations, including The San Diego Union Tribune.

Hazardous materials team members in protective suits walked toward the employee entrance of The San Diego Union Tribune building yesterday. The entrance was blocked for about three hours during the anthrax investigation.

Marc M. Keyser, 66, was arrested at the south Sacramento location listed as the return address on three envelopes sent to two television stations and a fast-food restaurant in the Sacramento area.

Keyser was arrested on suspicion of three counts of mailing hoax letters and was booked in the Sacramento County Jail, authorities said.

“It helps when you put your return address on the envelope,” FBI agent Steve Dupre said in Sacramento.

A package opened yesterday by a news assistant in the Union Tribune's third-floor newsroom contained a compact disc with a picture of former Secretary of State Colin Powell and a sugar packet labeled “anthrax sample.”

The image of Powell appeared to be from his Feb. 5, 2003, appearance at the United Nations, when he held up a vial intended to demonstrate the danger of anthrax.

The 38-year-old news assistant said he believed the package was a hoax, but he turned it over to security officials at the paper, who called authorities.

San Diego police, firefighters, the FBI and a hazardous-materials team wearing full protective suits responded to the Mission Valley building. The employee entrance where the package was examined was blocked off from about 1 to 4 p.m., when it was determined that the substance was not anthrax.

The building was not evacuated. Samples from mailings that began arriving Monday have not tested hazardous, the FBI said.

The FBI said the investigation began after The Atlantic magazine received an envelope Monday.

Keyser was investigated 10 years ago by U.S. postal authorities after sending 4,000 bogus collection letters, a hoax that he said at the time was intended to draw attention to the AIDS epidemic.

Darrell Foxworth, FBI spokesman in San Diego, said he could not say whether the current mailings are believed related to the Nov. 4 presidential election. Powell, a Republican, last week endorsed Democratic candidate Sen. Barack Obama.

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