By: The Seattle Post-Intelligencer newsroom was evacuated briefly Wednesday after an editor opened what appeared to be one of numerous anthrax hoax mailings sent to media outlets around the country.
The Seattle Fire Department did some air monitoring before giving the all-clear and allowing about 40 employees to return to work after about a half hour, P-I Managing Editor David McCumber said.
The FBI collected the envelope. Seattle FBI spokeswoman Robbie Burroughs said it appeared to be part of a wave of mailings that originated in Sacramento, Calif.
"Out of an abundance of caution," she said the material would be sent to a lab for testing "but the assumption is that it is sugar."
The FBI in California said Marc M. Keyser, 66, was taken into custody at his home in Sacramento on Wednesday. He is charged with three counts of sending a hoax letter.
An FBI news release said Keyser sent more than 120 envelopes containing a compact disc that had a packet labeled "Anthrax Sample" along with a biohazard symbol. The CD, titled "Anthrax: Shock & Awe Terror," had a digital image of former Secretary of State Colin Powell on it.
[The San Diego Union-Tribune reported today that it also received the letter.]
The packets tested so far contained only sugar, the agency said.
At the P-I, Candace Heckman, a breaking news editor, received one of the mailings, addressed to the "Seattle Post-Intelligencer News Room," the newspaper reported.
The mailing in a manila envelope had a Sacramento return address, similar to what investigators said were found at other media outlets. It also had the same contents: a small sugar-sized packet marked "Anthrax Sample" and the CD, the P-I reported.
Heckman took it in stride. "It's just sugar," she said. "I'm not worried."
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