Anthrax widow wants compensation from the feds for husband's death

"This investigation, as far as I'm concerned, is closed," Maureen Stevens said Thursday during a news conference. Stevens' husband, Robert, was a photo editor at American Media Inc., the publisher of the National Inquirer gossip tabloid, when he was exposed to anthrax mailed to his office in Boca Raton.

Stevens died Oct. 5, 2001, the first of five people to be killed and 17 others to be sickened in the attacks.

"I would hope now they (the FBI) can see they were in the wrong and we've been right from the beginning," Maureen Stevens said. "I hope they will stand there and admit it was their fault and make some kind of settlement."

Stevens filed a $50 million lawsuit against the government two years after her husband's death. She claims the 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.

"One of the people that worked at the laboratory told me they had better security at a 7-11 than they did at the ... laboratory where they had the most dangerous substances known to mankind," said Stevens' attorney, Richard Schuler.

The Justice Department said it was confident it could have convicted Ivins, who spent his career developing anthrax vaccines and cures at the Maryland biodefense lab.

They said he was angry about criticism of his anthrax vaccine and might have released the toxin to drum up support for his drug.

Stevens said she was shocked the government allowed Ivins to continue working at the lab.

"I really don't understand it," she said. "He was not just a little bit weird. I mean, he was certifiable."