By Mark Scott
Wellsville, NY – FBI agents and US Postal inspectors are continuing their search of two homes in Wellsville as part of an investigation into the 2001 Anthrax cases.
Federal authorities arrived in the normally quiet village of Wellsville Thursday morning. They began searching the current home and former apartment of a physician who trains medical personnel to respond to chemical and biological attacks. He's identified as Doctor Kenneth Berry, who founded PRE-EMPT Medical Counter-Terrorism in 1997.
John Anderson, managing editor of the Wellsville Daily Reporter, says he talked with employees at Jones Memorial Hospital in Wellsville, where Berry once worked.
"He was director of the emergency room here until about three or four years ago," Anderson said. "They (his former colleagues) said he was very interested in terrorism issues and weapons of mass destruction. He did a lot of emergency evacuation training for hospitals."
Anderson says Berry told neighbors a week ago that he and his family were going on vacation. He hasn't been seen in Wellsville since.
But Thursday, Berry was charged with assault for allegedly fighting with four family members at a Jersey shore motel just hours after the raids. He was arrested by police responding to domestic dispute at the White Sands Motel in Point Pleasant Beach. His relationship to the four was not immediately known. Berry was released from the Ocean County Jail after posting $10,000 bail.
In Wellsville, Anderson said residents were not only shocked, but scared, when the FBI began rolling in.
"Even the local police were alarmed to see 50 FBI agents invading the village," Anderson said.
Anderson said he was told by the FBI that they could be in Wellsville for as long as a week. Searches were also undertaken in New Jersey Thursday at a summer home owned by Barry's family.
An FBI spokesman would not say what agents were looking for. But he did say there is no current threat to the public's health and safety. Anthrax-laced envelopes were mailed in the fall of 2001, killing five people.