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St. Pete Times Gets Package Marked 'Anthrax'

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TBO.com

Published: November 3, 2008

ST. PETERSBURG - Police this afternoon called in a hazardous waste material team after a package with the word anthrax written on it showed up at the St. Petersburg Times building, St. Petersburg police spokesman Bill Proffitt said.

Federal and local authorities were expected to determine whether the package was linked to a hoax, uncovered last week, in which a 66-year-old man was found to have sent supposed anthrax samples to the top 100 news organizations in the country.

The hoax originated out of the Sacramento area. The package delivered to the Times today had a return address of Sacramento on it, Proffitt said.

However, in keeping with protocol, St. Petersburg police did not open the package, Proffitt said. Instead, it was placed in a sealed container and sent to a laboratory for analysis.

Dave Couvertier, the spokesman for the FBI's office in Tampa, said the package is suspected of being part of the same hoax. The 66-year-old Sacramento man who alleged perpetrated it sent packages that contained a CD with a picture on it of Colin Powell holding a beaker, said Steve Dupre, spokesman for the FBI's Sacramento office.

There was also a packet of sugar inside each package with the label "anthrax sample" attached to it, Dupre said. None of the samples tested by the FBI showed the material to be anthrax, and the local FBI office said no one had been placed in harm's way by the package that arrived at the St. Petersburg Times building today.

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