Reporter Of Anthrax Probe Is Fined Over Sources

A former USA Today reporter tomorrow will have to start paying hundreds, then thousands of dollars in fines, out of her own pocket, for refusing to reveal sources.

A federal judge handed down the order Friday for defying a court order to reveal sources she used in articles about the U.S. government’s investigation into anthrax attacks in 2001.

Starting at midnight tomorrow, Toni Locy will have to pay $500 a day for a week, followed by $1,000 a day in the second week and $5,000 a day after that until she reveals the names of nearly a dozen sources she used in her stories, according to a contempt order filed by Federal Court Judge Reggie B. Walton.

Ms. Locy’s case is unusual in that Judge Walton has refused to let her former employer, USA Today parent company Gannett Co. Inc., pay the contempt fines. The judge, in fact, said she couldn’t get financial help from anyone.

Ms. Locy now teaches journalism at West Virginia University, where she earns $75,000 a year. If Ms. Locy held out for three weeks, she would owe $45,500, or about 60% of her salary.

“I can’t pay it,” said Ms. Locy, 48 years old. “The fines will just accrue. That’s it. I don’t have that kind of money.”

She wouldn’t say exactly what her assets were, but said that she couldn’t begin writing checks. “[They] will bounce all over North America,” she said. “He’s not going to get anything…What I do have, I would like to pay my electric bill.”

Ms. Locy had asked for a stay of the ruling, which the judge denied. Her lawyer, Robert Bernius, said they plan to seek an emergency stay of the ruling from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. She is supposed to pay until an April 3 hearing when Judge Walton is expected to consider additional measures to get her to reveal her sources.

Ms. Locy was one of several reporters who wrote stories about a Federal Bureau of Investigation probe into a string of anthrax attacks that occurred after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Some of those stories mentioned former army scientist Steven J. Hatfill as a person that the government had identified as a “person of interest” in the attacks.

Mr. Hatfill later sued the Justice Department, accusing it of violating the federal Privacy Act by giving reporters information about him even though he hadn’t been charged with a crime. Mr. Hatfill, who was never charged in the case, is suing for unspecified damages. His legal team has asked for the sources’ identities as part of the case. Ms. Locy has sought permission from her sources to release her from her promise to keep them anonymous. Two did so last year and were deposed in the case. A third has done so since Feb. 19, but she has no more waivers so far.

Mr. Hatfill’s legal team had urged the judge to require that Ms. Locy pay the fines herself because no one else at USA Today can answer the questions she was ordered to answer. Judge Walton agreed.

– By Robert MacMillan

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This is outrageous. The radical right is simply trying to repress the truth by punishing reporters and whistleblowers. It’s fascist as hell.

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I don’t get it. If Hatfield sued the Justice Department for releasing his name why is the person reporting that fact being fined?