Trump, AMI, Anthrax, & Giuliani

AMI's David Pecker and Donald Trump are old friends. After the 2001 anthrax "attack" at
AMI a company owned by Trump's old friend Rudy Giuliani (BioOne) cleaned up AMI
and confiscated all of the scandalous photos and documents, which has become
“contaminated.” The alleged "attack" was likely a pretext for securing the scandalous
photos and documents…

Robbie Martin’s research on Giulianim, Jerome Hauer, BioOne AMI clean up https://
twitter.com/FluorescentGrey/status/1005010576840331264

Jerome M. Hauer, the first director of the Mayor Rudy Giuliani's Office of Emergency 
Hauer is a principal at The Chertoff Group in Washington, DC,

My comment on a video posted to YouTube by The Antidote

I'm wondering about Trump's relationship with his longtime friend David Pecker. Is it a
coincidence Pecker's AMI received an anthrax letter that contained a blue Star of
David? Is it a coincidence the AMI photo editor who died had the same real estate agent
as some of the hijackers? Is it a coincidence Trump's Mar a Lago estate is located about
20 miles from the apartments used by some of the hijackers and AMI? Is it a
coincidence Trump's longtime friend Rudy Giuliani owned the company that cleaned up
AMI and removed countless valuable and compromising photos from AMI? I think
Trump knows far more than we think he does. I think he was likely involved in the
operation.

My Amazon review of “The 2001 Anthrax Deception: The Case for a Domestic
Conspiracy” by Graeme MacQueen

The author makes a good case for a domestic conspiracy, with the likely cooperation of
foreign (Israeli and other) actors. I read this book because I recently came across
interesting connections between Donald Trump, David Pecker, AMI, anthrax, and Rudy
Giuliani. Trump is old friends with Pecker and Giuliani. Pecker's AMI was targeted
during the 2001 anthrax attacks, and Giuliani owned the clean up crew. It seems a lot of
damning information and photos in the AMI archives managed to disappear during the
clean up, which is very convenient, especially for Trump. His Mara Lago estate is about
20 miles from Delray Beach where some of the 9/11 Hijackers were living. The wife of
an editor at AMI is the real estate agent who found them their apartments. Boca Raton,
where AMI was located, is right next door to Delray Beach. Trump has too many
connections to NYC, Florida, the Russian-Jewish mafia, and the neocon arm of the
deep state to be ignored. He isn't president for no reason. Suffice it to say I think the
people who did 9/11 and the anthrax attacks have returned to power in Washington.

What Trump Did on 9/11

The night of September 10, 2001, Trump was at a Marc Jacobs fashion show in
Manhattan’s Meatpacking District... The next morning, Trump stayed in his apartment in
Trump Tower longer than normal, he would tell shock jock Howard Stern, because he
wanted to watch a TV interview with Jack Welch, who had retired as the CEO of
General Electric and had a new business book he was publicizing called Straight from
the Gut. News programming broke in after the first plane hit. “I saw the whole thing,”
Trump told Stern, saying he had windows from which he could see the World Trade
Center. “I mean, specifically, I have two windows that are focused on the building.” He
made his way 40 floors down to his office. He called Larry Silverstein, the real estate
magnate who recently had purchased the World Trade Center lease—“a very sad call,”
Trump would tell Real Estate Weekly... “This country is different today,” Trump said,
“and it’s going to be different than it ever was for many years to come.”

Read more: What Trump and Clinton Did on 9/11 https://www.politico.com/magazine/

story/2016/09/trump-hillary-clinton-september-11-911-attacks-nyc-214236

Archived http://archive.is/ACo6m

Linking Trump to 911 Culprits, and Israeli Hands All Over Patsy Hijackers https://
youtu.be/IoS5po5fvZU

Donald Trump, Larry Silverstein, and WTC7 (911 Documentary) https://www.real.video/

5815983165001

Donald Trump, David Pecker, AMI, Rudy Giuliani, and the 2001 Anthrax Attack

There are interesting connections between Donald Trump, AMI CEO David Pecker,
Rudy Giuliani, and the 2001 anthrax attack that occurred at the AMI offices in Florida.

I think the reason AMI was ‘attacked’ was to enable the clean up crew to collect all
incriminating info and photos of political enemies from AMI as well as destroy (or
secure) all incriminating info and photos of political allies.

The National Enquirer paid $30,000 for a "rumor" about Donald Trump. Then it
spiked the story

“Eight months before the company that owns the National Enquirer paid $150,000 to a
former Playboy Playmate who claimed she’d had an affair with Donald Trump, the
tabloid’s parent made a $30,000 payment to a less famous individual: a former doorman
at one of the real estate mogul’s New York City buildings...” Continue reading: The
National Enquirer paid $30,000 for a "rumor" about Donald Trump. Then it spiked the
story https://www.apnews.com/f37ecfc4710b468db6a103a245146172

Archived http://archive.is/EpzNS

Is the National Enquirer In Bed with Donald Trump?

“If you were at last night's Trump SoHo 90th birthday bash in Manhattan for The
National Enquirer, you could have told its fearless editorial leaders how much you enjoy
their current fare...” Continue reading: Is the National Enquirer In Bed with Donald
Trump? https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/09/is-the-national-enquirer-in-bed-with-
donald-trump

Archived http://archive.is/4fKSt

Donald Trump’s Alliance With the National Enquirer

“Trump and Enquirer CEO David Pecker have been friends for years...” Read more:

Donald Trump’s Alliance With the National Enquirer http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/
2015/10/trumps-alliance-with-the-national-enquirer.html

Archived http://archive.is/4fKSt

The very cozy relationship between Donald Trump and the National Enquirer

“But let's also point out that Trump has a very friendly relationship with the
Enquirer...” Read more: The very cozy relationship between Donald Trump and the
National Enquirer http://wpo.st/DNsb1

Archived http://archive.is/2LSZN

The National Enquirer’s Fervor for Trump

“Pecker and Trump have been friends for decades—their professional and personal
lives have intersected in myriad ways—and Pecker acknowledges that his tabloids’
coverage of Trump has a personal dimension..” Read more: The National Enquirer’s
Fervor for Trump https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/07/03/the-national-
enquirers-fervor-for-trump

Archived http://archive.is/XDFrZ

What the National Enquirer published about Joe Scarborough and Mika
Brzezinski

“Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, the co-hosts of MSNBC's "Morning Joe,"
alleged Friday that the White House used an impending hit piece in the National
Enquirer as a threat against them...” Continue reading: What the National Enquirer
published about Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski http://www.ky3.com/content/
news/What-the-National-Enquirer-published-about-Joe-Scarborough-and-Mika-
Brzezinski-431864133.html

Archived http://archive.is/QDXE8
David J. Pecker Chairman, President, CEO American Media, Inc.

“Following 9/11 on October 2001, American Media became the first U.S. company to be
targeted by bio-terrorists using anthrax, and one of its employees the first casualty of
this new kind of war. Despite being evacuated from its corporate headquarters, Mr.
Pecker moved quickly to relocate the company’s operations and all AMI titles were
published on schedule...” Read more: David J. Pecker Chairman, President, Chief
Executive Officer, American Media, Inc. https://www.americanmediainc.com/about-us/
executives/david-j-pecker

Anthrax Found in Third Person

“The third person to test positive is a 35-year-old woman who worked in the building
housing the National Enquirer and five other tabloids...” Read more: Anthrax Found in
Third Person https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2001/10/11/anthrax-
found-in-third-person/d784d3fe-1d47-4b6c-84dd-206889452dae/

Archived http://archive.is/aYHhI

Exclusive! It's Doom For Tabloid Archives!

“The anthrax spores that infested the building are believed to have arrived in a letter
addressed to the singer and actress Jennifer Lopez, in an envelope that contained
bluish powder and a plastic Star of David. Federal health officials found traces of
anthrax on all three floors of the 68,000-square-foot building -- on desks, computers,
carpets, a fax machine and shelves in the library where the archives were kept...” Read
more: Exclusive! It's Doom For Tabloid Archives! https://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/21/
us/exclusive-it-s-doom-for-tabloid-archives.html

Archived http://archive.is/ezEES

Giuliani Co. Cleaning Up Anthrax

“Workers began pumping a potent chemical into the former headquarters of a

supermarket tabloid Sunday to clean up the first target in a series of deadly anthrax
attacks in 2001. The cleanup is being led by BioONE, a company established by former
New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Sabre Technical Services, which
decontaminated other buildings hit by anthrax attacks...” Continue reading: Giuliani Co.
Cleaning Up Anthrax https://www.cbsnews.com/news/giuliani-co-cleaning-up-anthrax/

Archived http://archive.is/eZ6xJ

Former AMI building declared free of anthrax contamination

WEST PALM BEACH — Federal environmental experts have concluded that the former
American Media Inc. building in Boca Raton has been cleared of the anthrax spores that
killed a photo editor more than five years ago and shuttered the tabloid publisher's
headquarters...” Continue reading: Former AMI building declared free of anthrax
contamination http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/formeramibldganthraxfree.html

Archived http://archive.is/Xp58H
Giuliani Firm Anthrax Work Ends in a Feud

“Freelance photographers have objected to the plan to incinerate the photos, saying
they still own the pictures. In September, a Virginia-based photographer, Greg
Mathieson, filed a $2 million federal lawsuit against American Media, alleging that it
failed to safeguard more than 1400 of his photographs, or to compensate him for their
loss. Last month, attorneys for the company asked a judge to throw the case out. They
argued that the anthrax contamination was an "unforeseeable criminal event" for which
the company could not be held liable...” Read more: Giuliani Firm Anthrax Work Ends in
a Feud http://www.nysun.com/new-york/giuliani-firm-anthrax-work-ends-in-a-feud/
23660/

Archived http://archive.is/BlXDp

Who Are Donald Trump's Closest Friends?

“Trump rewards loyalty, and Rudy has been steadfast from the gate. Who defends the
president’s every nonsensical Tweet? Rudy. Who stands up to Chuck Todd on Meet The
Press to blunt criticism of his New York buddy? Rudy. Trump has repaid the loyalty by
giving Giuliani purview over everything cyber, which brings him into the White House or
Trump Tower whenever he wishes...” Read more: Who Are Donald Trump's Closest
Friends? https://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/politics/a9521926/donald-trump-
friends/

Giuliani's history raises legal questions as he takes on Trump defense

“As a prominent surrogate for Donald Trump's 2016 campaign, Rudy Giuliani was an
active purveyor of pre-election leaks about the FBI probe into Hillary Clinton's emails. As
a member of Trump's transition, he played a political role during a period central to
Robert Mueller's Russia investigation.” Read more: Giuliani's history raises legal
questions as he takes on Trump defense https://politi.co/2vACq69  

Archived http://archive.is/e9D1O

AP: National Enquirer hid damaging Trump stories in a safe

The National Enquirer kept a safe containing documents on hush money payments and
other damaging stories it killed as part of its cozy relationship with Donald Trump
leading up to the 2016 presidential election, people familiar with the arrangement told
The Associated Press. The detail came as several media outlets reported on Thursday
that federal prosecutors had granted immunity to National Enquirer chief David Pecker,
potentially laying bare his efforts to protect his longtime friend Trump. AP: National
Enquirer hid damaging Trump stories in a safe https://apnews.com/
143be3c52d4746af8546ca6772754407
Archived http://archive.is/dZAHA

Anthrax Found in Third Person

By Peter Slevin
Justin Blum
October 11, 2001

Anthrax has been discovered in a third person who worked at the headquarters of a
tabloid newspaper company here, federal authorities reported tonight. Prosecutors
formally opened a criminal investigation into a case that has left a photo editor dead, but
they have no evidence linking the anthrax outbreak to the Sept. 11 terrorist hijackings.
The third person to test positive is a 35-year-old woman who worked in the building
housing the National Enquirer and five other tabloids. A swab test turned up the bacteria
in her nasal passages, but she has not developed symptoms of the disease. As in the
case of another infected worker, doctors expect antibiotics to eliminate the infection.

More than 1,000 newspaper employees, contract workers and their relatives have been
tested for exposure to the disease. Health officials announced tonight that roughly 700
nasal swab tests have come back negative. All people given the test were offered
antibiotics. Photo editor Robert Stevens, 63, whose symptoms signaled the first case,
died on Friday. Friends and co-workers remembered him warmly at a memorial service
today, speaking of his laughter and his generous heart.

At a late evening news conference, FBI special agent Hector M. Pesquera said
investigators in protective suits will be sweeping the three-story American Media Inc.
building again in an attempt to trace the movements of the third person infected, a
woman who asked to remain unidentified. He said agents have found nothing
connecting the anthrax contamination to any terrorist organization, but are ruling nothing
out as they continue to investigate. Several of the Sept. 11 hijackers had lived in recent
months in nearby communities.

U.S. Attorney Guy Lewis told reporters that investigators do not know how the AMI
offices became contaminated. Promising to "bring every resource we have to bear," he
said authorities have not developed "what I'd characterize as conceivable theories
about how the bacteria got into the building."

Authorities said anthrax, which is not contagious, has not been found outside the AMI
building, now evacuated and sealed. Lewis said the criminal inquiry aims to learn how
and where the bacteria was introduced, and by whom.

Investigators working to track the particular variety of anthrax found in the three
employees and on Stevens's keyboard are testing a theory that it originated in the
United States, perhaps in an Iowa laboratory in the 1950s. Because the strain found in
Florida has so far responded to antibiotics, U.S. authorities suspect it was not
engineered as a biological weapon, but emerged from a medical research lab.
The Iowa variety, dubbed the "Ames strain," was shipped by scientists to countless
laboratories across the country in past decades as a benchmark for identifying anthrax.
The strain was passed around freely because it grows well in culture dishes, said
Norman Cheville, dean of Iowa State's college of veterinary medicine. Researchers at
the Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick in Maryland
have studied it for years and have distributed it periodically to university researchers.
Indeed, the strain is so widespread in laboratories around the world that confirming it
was the variety that killed Stevens would tell little about where the Boca Raton spores
came from, says Ronald Atlas, dean of the University of Louisville graduate school and
president-elect of the American Society for Microbiology.

As the investigation of the Florida outbreak continued today, fears about an anthrax
threat reverberated around of the country. Pharmacies reported an increase in requests
for ciprofloxacin (brand name Cipro), an antibiotic usually effective against the disease,
and the State Department ordered all U.S. embassies around the world to store
precautionary supplies of the drug for their employees.

Hospitals and emergency rescue switchboards across the nation have received
telephone calls from worried people complaining of the flu-like symptoms that often
accompany anthrax in its early stages. Fire-rescue teams have rushed to examine
powder and packages that callers found suspicious, but have discovered no anthrax.
Part of the State Department was evacuated this afternoon after a woman in the
mailroom opened an envelope that contained an unknown powder. She sounded an
alarm when some of the powder fell on her shoes, said Washington fire department
spokesman Alan Etter. A city hazardous materials team and members of the FBI
terrorism task force determined that the substance was not hazardous.

"We're walking a fine line between prudence and panic here," Etter said.
Working to calm jangled nerves, federal and state health authorities in Florida have
expressed confidence that the bacteria responsible for the infection of Stevens,
mailroom worker Ernesto Blanco and the 35-year-old woman, who has not been named,
were confined to the three-story building where they worked. Tests of Stevens's home
and garden, as well as of his favorite bicycle routes and fishing spots, revealed no
anthrax spores.

Similarly, no anthrax cases, or suspected anthrax cases, have been identified

elsewhere in the country.

As the AMI employees wait for results, some have warned that conventional tests for
anthrax can easily give a false positive signal in the presence of closely related bacteria
belonging to the same family as the anthrax germ. It was not clear as of last night
whether the gold-standard test, a genetic analysis known as PCR (polymerase chain
reaction), had been applied in the Florida cases.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is advising people not to hoard
antibiotics or take them without cause, and not to lay in supplies of gas masks. The
government agency, which shipped antibiotics to nearby Delray Beach for the people
connected to American Media Inc., controls a supply large enough to treat 2 million
individuals. Drugs from the federal stockpile can be shipped quickly in case of an
outbreak.

Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson urged the health care
community to resist pressure to prescribe antibiotics such as Cipro. HHS spokesman
Kevin Keane said, "People should not be hoarding medicine. If it is needed, there will be
plenty."

Public health officials have notified doctors and hospitals to be alert to possible cases of
anthrax. The disease typically responds to antibiotics taken before major symptoms
develop, leaving doctors confident that any widespread attack could be thwarted.

Several Washington area pharmacies, however, have reported increased Cipro sales
since Monday, when more than 300 staff members of American Media, which publishes
supermarket tabloids including the National Enquirer, the Globe and the Star, were seen
on national television lining up for an anthrax test.

Responding to worried readers, American Media Inc. Chairman Chairman David Pecker
said in a written statement that readers will not contract anthrax from the newspapers
themselves.

The Boca Raton building, about an hour north of Miami, housed only AMI editorial
operations and senior management, Pecker said. "No printing or shipping of
publications was done from Boca. The printing and shipping of AMI tabloids is handled
by five plants around the country, none of which are in Florida," he said.

Pharmacist Bola Adeolu, at a CVS store in downtown Bethesda, said Cipro

prescriptions have climbed sharply over the last two days. People are buying the
antibiotics in large quantities -- packages of 100 to 150 capsules. Others are asking
what they need to do to get a prescription, he said.

"Cipro usually doesn't fly off the shelf. What we had on the shelf should have lasted us
two weeks. It sold in two days," Adeolu said.

CVS spokesman Todd Andrews said the increase in Cipro sales has been most
pronounced in the New York metropolitan area.

Bayer AG, the largest drug manufacturer in Germany, announced today that it will
reopen a shuttered production plant to increase its output of Cipro by 25 percent after
Nov. 1. The plan is a response to increased U.S. demand amid anthrax worries, said
spokesperson Christian Sehnert.
At a congressional hearing today, Rep. Peter Deutsch (D-Fla.) accused Bush
administration officials of being slow to release details of the investigation into the
American Media case, particularly during a time of high anxiety.

"The press accounts look like something out of a bad movie," Deutsch said, waving a
fistful of articles from local newspapers. "People are calling up the hazmat teams every
time they see a packet of dust. . . . You're not clearing up an awful lot."

Staff writers Ceci Connolly, Terence Chea, Petula Dvorak, Sue Anne Pressley and Rick
Weiss contributed to this report.

Hazardous material workers investigate a substance in a U.S. Postal Service container

at a mail distribution center in Deerfield Beach, Fla., Monday, that turned out to be
dirt.Fire-rescue workers bag suspected biohazardous materials at American Media Inc.
offices in Boca Raton, Fla., where three victims worked.

++++

David J. Pecker
Chairman, President, Chief Executive Officer of American Media Inc (AMI)

David J. Pecker became Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of American
Media, Inc. (AMI) in May 1999, when along with Evercore Partners, he purchased the
company. Today, AMI is the leading publisher of celebrity and health & fitness
magazines including Star, National Enquirer, Shape and Men’s Fitness. The company’s
holdings also include Distribution Services Inc. (DSI), the leading supermarket in-store
merchandiser.

Following 9/11 on October 2001, American Media became the first U.S. company to be
targeted by bio-terrorists using anthrax, and one of its employees the first casualty of
this new kind of war. Despite being evacuated from its corporate headquarters, Mr.
Pecker moved quickly to relocate the company’s operations and all AMI titles were
published on schedule.

In November of 2002, Mr. Pecker and Evercore acquired Weider Publications Inc. the
leading publisher of health & fitness magazines, including category leader Shape and
Men’s Fitness. It was the latest acquisition in a 20-year career that has seen Mr. Pecker
complete more than $4 Billion in magazine transactions. In April 2003, Mr. Pecker
participated in the $1.5 billion recapitalization of AMI led by Evercore and Thomas H.
Lee Partners.

In April 2004, Mr. Pecker re-launched Star as a 100-page glossy, the first time a tabloid
was ever successfully converted to magazine format.

From 2004 to the present, Mr. Pecker oversaw unprecedented growth in AMI’s
advertising, with paging for its titles up 19% over the five year period (including a 58%
increase for Star) while industry totals declined 8.7% for the same period. During this
time, Shape became the #1 title in the Women’s Active Lifestyle Category, Men’s
Fitness was successfully re-launched, and digital platforms were developed for all the
company’s brands. By adding Playboy to AMI’s stable of strong male focused titles
including Men’s Fitness, Muscle & Fitness and Flex, the company now reaches an
astounding number of men.

In February 2009, AMI revitalized its capital structure through a transaction with its
bondholders, including Angelo, Gordon & Company and Avenue Capital Management
LLC, that reduced its debt by $227 million in exchange for 95% ownership of the
company. Mr. Pecker was asked to remain in his roles as Chairman, President and CEO
and agreed.

Before acquiring American Media, Inc. Mr. Pecker was President and Chief Executive
Officer of Hachette Filipacchi Magazines. He was appointed Chief Executive Officer in
1992, after being named President of Hachette Magazines, Inc. in September 1991.
Prior to September 1990, Mr. Pecker had served as Executive Vice President, Chief
Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer for Hachette Magazines, Inc. formerly
Diamandis Communications Inc.

Mr. Pecker holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from Pace University
and attended Pace University Graduate School of Business. In May of 1998, the
university awarded him an Honorary Doctorate of Commercial Science. Mr. Pecker has
been elected as a Trustee of the Pace University Board of Trustees.

++++

It’s doom for the tabloid archives!

It may not be a collection worthy of the Smithsonian, but it is quintessential Americana,

the trove of photos, notes and clippings from the spicy, arresting and often downright
unbelievable issues of The National Enquirer, Star and other supermarket tabloids.
Now those archives, trapped here inside the posh, abandoned former headquarters of
the tabloids' publisher, American Media Inc., or A.M.I., are destined for destruction. For
amid the original photos of Bigfoot's wedding, the reporters' notebooks chronicling
Monica Lewinsky's every move and the piles of clippings about Elizabeth Taylor's
decline lurk who-knows-how-many deadly anthrax spores.

The mind leaps in considering these artifacts: five decades' worth of stunning, shocking,
exclusive, tragic, spine-tingling, sidesplitting and bizarre images and documents from
the tabloid world. There are five million photographs, to start. Models and movie stars
cavorting half-naked in the tropics. The Bigfoot nuptials, Bat Boy lurking in caves and
forests. And Elvis, of course, stone-faced and eerily out of focus in his coffin.
Then there are page upon page of clippings: breathless accounts of presidential trysts,
exclusives on the trials of O. J. Simpson, John W. Hinckley Jr. and the Menendez
brothers, and the occasional interview with a space alien.

''It was a phenomenal library,'' said Kathleen Cottay, A.M.I.'s chief librarian, standing at
the single file drawer that holds the few hard-copy photos in the company's new offices,
just across the highway from the old one. ''Everyone used to call us for stuff.''

Almost two years after a still-unidentified biological terrorist contaminated the company's
headquarters with anthrax, killing a National Enquirer photo editor and provoking
international dread, a developer has bought the star-crossed building on the condition
that he destroy its contents. The new owner, David Rustine, bought it in April for
$40,000, seemingly a steal considering that pre-anthrax, the newly renovated building
was valued at $15 million. The difficult, dangerous work of decontamination, already
delayed because the preparation has been more troublesome than Mr. Rustine
expected, could begin soon.

The Environmental Protection Agency found anthrax spores throughout the three-story
building late in 2001, and officials of the agency say the spores can become more
potent over time. So Mr. Rustine, with the help of Marcor Remediation, a Maryland
cleanup company that helped rid the Hart Senate Office Building of anthrax, has a
painstaking job ahead of him.

Before the cleanup crew can set foot in the building, now surrounded by wire fencing
and overgrown grass, Mr. Rustine must submit a detailed cleanup plan to the E.P.A. and
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A preliminary plan alone is more than
100 pages, outlining the moon suits the crew would wear, the exact ratio of Ultra Clorox
Germicidal Bleach to white vinegar that would be used to kill the anthrax spores and the
dimensions of the chamber where the crew would be decontaminated.

The first task will be destroying everything, from the treasured archives to the lunch tray
that Michael B. Kahane, A.M.I.'s chief counsel, left on his desk when the building was
suddenly evacuated. According to the preliminary plan, that means soaking the photos
and clippings in the bleach and vinegar, shredding them, wrapping them in plastic and
duct tape, and disposing of them at a location not yet chosen.

John Taylor, a vice president of Consultants in Disease and Injury Control, an Atlanta
company helping with the planning for the cleanup, said he did not yet know where all
this material would eventually end up. But he said nothing would leave the building until
tests showed it free of anthrax spores.

As the final plan for detoxifying the property is pieced together, A.M.I. employees are
waiting with regret but also relief. Mr. Kahane, for one, is not sentimental. He said he
would be surprised if anyone now wanted the personal possessions like artwork, family
photos, fountain pen collections, source lists and such that he and 350 co-workers had
left in the building.
''Anything in there that I owned, not touched for two years, I don't think I'd want it back,''
Mr. Kahane said, sitting in his austere new office below mock-ups of tabloid covers with
headlines like ''Demi and Ashton: Their New Love Nest!''

Exactly which A.M.I. photos will be gone forever is complicated to sort out, but this much
is known: The company scanned into an electronic archive almost all the images that
had actually appeared in its publications over the years. On the other hand, many
thousands that the company had on file but had never used are now lost, said Ms.
Cottay, the chief librarian, as are virtually all the old clippings, for which no electronic
archive existed at the time.

The anthrax spores that infested the building are believed to have arrived in a letter
addressed to the singer and actress Jennifer Lopez, in an envelope that contained
bluish powder and a plastic Star of David. Federal health officials found traces of
anthrax on all three floors of the 68,000-square-foot building -- on desks, computers,
carpets, a fax machine and shelves in the library where the archives were kept.

The question of who was responsible for the cleanup and for guarding the building
lingered for over a year, as the company squabbled with the F.B.I., the E.P.A. and other
government agencies. The environmental agency and the Palm Beach County Health
Department quickly seized control of the building, Mr. Kahane said, although the
company had to continue spending $50,000 a month for round-the-clock security and
upkeep until it was sold. Even the air-conditioning has had to stay on, he said, because
anthrax is believed to grow faster in humid conditions.

Two congressmen from Palm Beach County eventually proposed legislation to transfer
the building to the federal government and make it a Superfund site, but the bill stalled.
Boca Raton city officials and executives of the company grew increasingly nervous,
envisioning a hurricane that would knock out the building's windows, causing the
anthrax to spread hither and yon.

Mr. Kahane said Mr. Rustine offered the perfect solution because, unlike others who
expressed interest in the building, he had the means to clean it properly. Mr. Rustine
has a relative who is an executive at Marcor Remediation, the Maryland company that
helped decontaminate the Senate building and will be doing the actual cleanup work
here.

Mr. Rustine, who buys distressed property, said he wanted the building because he
believed it could be coveted office space again. His company will be the first to move in,
he added.

''It's a beautiful building in what is probably the most prestigious office park in Florida,''
he said. ''And after we clean it, it will be the cleanest building in Florida, probably in the
country.''
He said he had no idea yet how much the cleanup would cost. It took more than $14
million and three months to disinfect the Senate building. In that case, workers pumped
poisonous chlorine dioxide gas into the office of Senator Tom Daschle, who had
received a letter containing anthrax just after A.M.I. did, and into the ventilation system.

It took three attempts before testing showed that no anthrax spores remained in the
building.

Though Mr. Rustine acknowledged that he occasionally glanced at the cover of The
National Enquirer in the checkout line, he said he felt no pangs about destroying the
photographs that have absorbed supermarket shoppers and helped define the nation's
popular culture since the days of the Eisenhower administration.

''I don't marry my real estate,'' he said. ''There is some curiosity there, but to me it's just
a part of business that we have to clean up and eliminate them.''
Correction: September 2, 2003 

An article on Aug. 21 about plans to destroy archives at the American Media Inc.
headquarters in Boca Raton, Fla., which was contaminated when a photo editor was
killed in an anthrax attack there, misidentified his publication. It was The Sun, not The
National Enquirer.

Exclusive! It's Doom For Tabloid Archives! https://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/21/us/

exclusive-it-s-doom-for-tabloid-archives.html

Former AMI building declared free of anthrax contamination

Source: Palm Beach Post, February 8, 2007.

Former AMI building declared free of anthrax contamination
By Gretel Sarmiento, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 08, 2007

WEST PALM BEACH — Federal environmental experts have concluded that the former
American Media Inc. building in Boca Raton has been cleared of the anthrax spores that
killed a photo editor more than five years ago and shuttered the tabloid publisher's
headquarters.

The 160-page report was sent to Dr. Jean Malecki, director of the Palm Beach County
Health Department. She will review it and decide by next week whether the building,
which she ordered closed on Oct. 10, 2001, can reopen.

Malecki did not indicate Wednesday what her decision would be, but her reaction after
getting the positive assessment was clear.

"It was a relief," she said. "It's been five years of my life. But it will be over soon, I
guarantee it."
The report's conclusion: "In summary, based in the information available, the technical
working group concludes that the measures used to treat and remove B. anthracis at
the former AMI building at 5401 Broken Sound Blvd. were successful.

"The technical working group believes that the building can be safely reoccupied,
normal working activities resumed, and building contents reused."

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, U.S. Public Health Service,
Occupational Safety and Health Administration and Environmental Protection Agency
reviewed the data.

News of the report brought back memories to Boca Raton Mayor Steven Abrams.

"It's really been an odyssey," Abrams said Wednesday. "This is a significant step closer
to having it reopen."

Barely six months into his first term as mayor, Abrams found himself working around the
clock and meeting with federal officials to deal with "the crisis."

"All of the networks were running a picture of the building 24 hours with the dateline of
Boca Raton underneath it. None of this was in my playbook," Abrams said. "But we
responded to the contamination and started to rebuild the image of Boca."

The AMI attack came just days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks had shaken the
nation's sense of security. For many, seeing planes fly into buildings was horrifying
enough, but the idea that a letter in their mailbox could kill them shook them to their
core.

Sun photo editor Bob Stevens' death on Oct. 5, 2001, forced parent AMI to shut down
its multimillion-dollar building. Stevens co-worker Ernie Blanco was nearly killed after
anthrax exposure. He now lives in West Palm Beach. Stevens lived in suburban
Lantana

The U.S. Postal Service was nearly crippled by the discovery of anthrax in the mail.
Police responded to scores of frantic calls, most of which turned out to be cases of
sugar or baby powder.

Three lawsuits stemming from the attack are still active, including one by Stevens'
widow against the federal government and another by Greg Mathieson of AMI Photo
News Agency against AMI over 1,400 photos and negatives he never got back.
They were among the millions of tabloid staples stored in boxes in the basement,
including photos of Bigfoot, celebrities caught in compromising positions and even the
photo of Elvis in his coffin.
Former Boca Raton City Councilman Dave Freudenberg on Wednesday said he
believed all along the building was clean of anthrax since the first cleanup efforts were
performed in 2004 by fumigation company BioONE.

"If they told me I would have no problem walking in," Freudenberg said, "I would go right
now."

Freudenberg, who was on the city council in 2001, blames bureaucracy for the delay in
reopening the building.

"I was there when it all started," he said. "Now it's time we put this chapter in the city
history behind us and we forget what that building did."

BioONE, a fumigation company associated with former New York Mayor Rudolph
Giuliani, fumigated the three-story facility with chlorine dioxide in July 2004. But the
building remained closed when BioONE refused to release the cleanup data, claiming
the building's owner, David Rustine, did not renew its contract or pay for the fumigation
efforts.

Rustine, who paid only $40,000 for a contaminated building worth $3.8 million, hired
MARCOR Remediation to finish cleaning the boxes of AMI materials in 2005. This past
November, MARCOR began the final cleanup and sampling to ensure all spores had
been killed.

Samples were kept inside sealed boxes and sent to a laboratory in Houston that
reported that all were negative for anthrax.

After reviewing the data, the federal advisory group submitted its conclusion to Malecki,
the county health department chief.

"These negative results, particularly after the thousands of previous negative results for
spore strips, wipe samples and air tests in the building, reinforces that all criteria for
removing the quarantine and opening the building have been met," the report said.

The fate of the building now rests in Malecki's hands.

If the building reopens, some say it won't take much to get it back on track.

"It was a terrible tragedy what happened there, and people will remember that, but time
heals all wounds," said Troy McLellan, Greater Boca Raton Chamber of Commerce
president and CEO. "It will make a great corporate headquarters."

Like McLellan, Abrams is looking to the future.

"It could be a very productive office building - that's what we are looking forward to," he
said. "It would close the book - not just the chapters, the whole book."
Chronology

Sept. 19, 2001: Eight days after the Sept. 11 attacks, tabloid photo editor Bob
Stevens opens a letter in his AMI office and a white powder spills out.

Oct. 5: Stevens dies of what authorities later determine is anthrax poisoning.

Oct. 10: Dr. Jean Malecki, director of the Palm Beach County Health Department, signs
a quarantine order for the AMI building and closes it.

Oct. 17: At least 28 people working in the U.S. Capitol test positive for anthrax
exposure.

January 2002: Hart Senate Office Building reopens after the federal government spends
$27 million to decontaminate it.

April 2003: Real estate investor David Rustine buys the AMI building for $40,000, a
fraction of its $3.8 million value.

Sept. 24: Stevens' widow, Maureen, sues the federal government over his death.
July 12, 2004: BioONE, a joint venture between former New York City Mayor Rudolph
Giuliani and Saber Technical Services, decontaminates the former AMI building and
plans to use it as its headquarters.

April 14, 2005: BioONE begins decontaminating anthrax-laden boxes at the former AMI
building.

April 18: U.S. District Judge Daniel T.K. Hurley refuses to dismiss Maureen Stevens'
lawsuit. The federal government appeals to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeal in Atlanta. A
decision is pending.

May 31: Rustine declines to extend BioONE's contract to clean up boxes stored at the
former AMI building.

June 9: BioONE announces suspension of the cleanup.

July: Rustine hires MARCOR Remediation Inc. to reclean thousands of boxes already
fumigated by BioONE.

Week of Dec. 19: All anthrax-laden boxes are decontaminated.

May 2006: MARCOR returns to the site to collect post-decontamination samples.

November: MARCOR starts final round of fumigation and testing.

December: Samples are analyzed by Microbiology Specialists Inc., and the results are
turned over to a federal advisory panel.

Wednesday: The panel reports that the former AMI is clear of anthrax.

Compiled by staff researcher Krista Pegnetter and staff writers Gretel Sarmiento and
Eliot Kleinberg

++++

Giuliani Firm Anthrax Work Ends in a Feud

An anthrax decontamination project in Florida that Mayor Giuliani showcased as one of

his highest-profile ventures after joining the private sector has fizzled out at cost of
millions of dollars to his firm.

The project was an effort of Bio-One Solutions LLC, a joint venture between the former
mayor's consulting firm, Giuliani Partners LLC, and Sabre Technical Services LLC, an
Albany-based environmental company. Bio-One Solutions had planned to place its
offices in a Boca Raton, Fla., building and to have Mr. Giuliani be one of the first to
cross the threshold after the firm eliminated the deadly spores from the complex, which
once housed the offices of a company that published supermarket tabloids.
Boca Raton's mayor, Steven Abrams, boasted to local residents that, in terms of the
building's tenants, the city was trading up. "It used to be home of the National Enquirer
and now it's the home of a national hero," Mr. Abrams said last fall as he and Mr.
Giuliani campaigned for President Bush.

Now, more than 16 months after Bio-One declared that the offices were anthrax free,
there are no plans for the firm, or Mr. Giuliani, to return to the site. In fact, the building
remains closed and under quarantine.

Mr. Giuliani's firm stopped work after its contract with the building's owner expired in
May. The owner hired a rival decontamination company, Marcor Remediation
Incorporated, which began work at the three-story office complex yesterday, a
spokesman for the Palm Beach County health department, Timothy O'Connor, said.

No one has challenged the quality of the work Bio-One performed at the site, which
involved pumping chlorine dioxide gas through the building's workspaces. "There's a
pretty good satisfaction that they got 100% kill in that building," Mr. O'Connor said.

However, the ensuing contract dispute, and the fact that Bio-One has never been paid
for its efforts, could contribute to questions about Mr. Giuliani's management of his
business endeavors since leaving office at the end of 2001. If Mr. Giuliani goes ahead
with a possible bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, his business
ventures, which are far flung and include legal and consulting work, are likely to come
under increased scrutiny. Already, he has drawn critical press attention for his consulting
work on anti-crime initiatives in Mexico City and his ties to a for-profit vocational college
in Kentucky that recently shut down due to financial difficulties.

In the Bio-One episode, it was photos of celebrities like Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
and Princess Diana that became the point of contention that ultimately soured the firm's
involvement in the widely touted anthrax cleanup project. The photos were among
archives of the Enquirer, the Star, and other publications stored in the parking garage at
American Media Inc. The wax-lined cardboard containers were doused in a chemical
rinse while being moved, but most were never fully decontaminated. Bio-One's chief
operating officer and general counsel, Karen Cavanagh, said in an interview yesterday
that company officials were not pleased when they felt forced to walk away from the
project earlier this year. "It was a very frustrating time for us," she said. "There was the
issue of the contents and the photographs and who owned those and who was
responsible for them."

Ms. Cavanagh said both her firm and the real estate investor who bought the
contaminated building from American Media for $40,000, David Rustine, assumed at the
outset that all the boxed up materials would be destroyed. "You can see where the crux
of the contract dispute goes back to," she said.

Freelance photographers have objected to the plan to incinerate the photos, saying they
still own the pictures. In September, a Virginia-based photographer, Greg Mathieson,
filed a $2 million federal lawsuit against American Media, alleging that it failed to
safeguard more than 1400 of his photographs, or to compensate him for their loss. Last
month, attorneys for the company asked a judge to throw the case out. They argued
that the anthrax contamination was an "unforeseeable criminal event" for which the
company could not be held liable.

The photo files could be among the most hazardous items ever on the site. It was a
photo editor for American Media, Robert Stevens, who died after being exposed to
anthrax at the tabloid publisher's offices in October 2001. Two postal workers and a
Bronx woman also died of anthrax later that month, and employees at the New York
offices of CBS, NBC, and the New York Post also fell ill. Investigators said the anthrax
was sent through the mail. No one has been publicly charged in the case.

Once the issue of preserving the photographs arose, Bio-One and Mr. Rustine could not
reach agreement on who would pay for the decontamination work, and how much. "It
was a 'you go your way, we go our way,'" Ms. Cavanagh said.

Ms. Cavanagh said Bio-One was never paid for the anthrax-killing project, which Mr.
Giuliani told reporters would cost more than $5 million. "It cost us quite a bit," she said.
"We were never compensated for the work we did there."

A secretary at Mr. Rustine's real estate firm, Crown Companies, said Mr. Rustine would
not agree to be interviewed for this story. Through a spokeswoman, Mr. Giuliani also
declined to be interviewed.
Asked if Bio-One might take legal action to recoup its losses, Ms. Cavanagh said the
firm may still have some leverage to resolve the dispute because the company's data
may be needed to convince public health authorities that the site is truly clean. "At the
end of the day, we'd like to work something out that's fair and will get the quarantine
lifted," she said.

Bio-One now says it has no plans to move into the tabloid publisher's former offices.
"We really were committed to making the building itself into a symbol that we can
handle these types of issues," Ms. Cavanagh said. "Because of what occurred with the
owner, obviously that didn't work out."

Mr. Abrams, the Boca Raton mayor, said in an interview yesterday that the drawn-out
saga has been disconcerting to local residents, but he stressed that the delays were not
the fault of Mr. Giuliani's firm. "It's been an ongoing frustration for the city literally from
the day of the first anthrax attack," Mr. Abrams said. "Our view is Bio-One was really a
savior for us because we were at a dead end with the federal government."

In May, the Palm Beach Post reported that two medical waste treatment companies
declined to work with Bio-One because of concerns about the autoclaving process the
company planned to use to decontaminate the disputed boxes. Ms. Cavanagh said
those worries were unfounded.

The health department spokesman, Mr. O'Connor, said the authorities agreed.
"Everybody, including the Environmental Protection Agency, felt it was adequate," he
said. Bio-One returned to the site briefly after concerns were raised that hurricane-
related flooding could again propagate the deadly anthrax spores.

The new contractor, Marcor, said in a statement yesterday that it hopes to complete the
remaining work within three months.

"This has taken a lot longer than we expected," Mr. O'Connor said.

Ms. Cavanagh said Bio-One has "moved on" and now has the vast majority of its
personnel cleaning up mold damage from the recent hurricanes. "We've been extremely
busy in the Gulf region and we expect to be for the foreseeable future," she said.

++++