In Washington, U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton on April 21 ruled that Steven Hatfill, a former government scientist, is entitled to information from the investigation as he pursues his lawsuit against former Attorney General John Ashcroft and other federal officials.

Hatfill sued the government in August 2003 after Ashcroft named him as a "person of interest" in the anthrax attacks. The scientist has not been charged with any crimes. The lawsuit alleges federal officials destroyed Hatfill's reputation, harassed him, unlawfully fired him from his job and ruined his future job prospects.

Walton's order, however, prevents Hatfill's lawyers from interviewing Ashcroft and the other defendants in the case.

Hatfill's attorney, Thomas Connolly, declined to comment on the ruling.

In Fort Lauderdale, U.S. District Judge Daniel T.K. Hurley on April 18 rejected a motion to dismiss the wrongful death lawsuit against the government filed by Maureen Stevens, the widow of the nation's first anthrax victim.

As in the Hatfill case, the ruling gives Stevens access to documents federal investigators have refused to release. Previous requests for information filed under the Freedom of Information Act were not answered, said Stevens' lead attorney, Richard Schuler.

Stevens sued the government in December 2003. Her lawsuit alleges that security lapses at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases in Fort Detrick, Md., ultimately brought her husband, Bob, in contact with anthrax. The deadly bacterium was sent through the mail to the former American Media Inc. building in Boca Raton in September 2001. Bob Stevens, an AMI photo editor, died of anthrax inhalation on Oct. 5, 2001.

Schuler has produced a memo from an age-discrimination case involving three former scientists who disclosed that 27 specimens, including anthrax and Ebola, were missing from the research institute labs in 1992.

Federal attorneys argued in January 2004 that proceeding with the lawsuit would jeopardize the ongoing FBI investigation. They insisted that evidence-gathering by Schuler "would risk exposing documents that are infused with sensitive investigative information, such as the identity and location of U.S. government facilities processing anthrax... and the identities of persons under investigation by the FBI."

Hurley granted the government's request in April 2004 to postpone the case for six months. In July, federal attorneys then asked the judge to dismiss the lawsuit. They argued the government is not liable for Stevens' death.

Refusing to dismiss the case last month, Hurley challenged the position that the government is blameless.

"It is reasonable for members of the general public to expect that security procedures and policies governing handling of lethal biohazards by medical research laboratories are designed not only for the protection of the employees and communities surrounding the laboratories, but for the public at large, which is realistically and forseeably at risk in the event that a deadly organism or contagion is released," he wrote.

Hurley then ordered the U.S. Department of Justice to respond to the allegations made in Stevens' lawsuit by June 2.

Federal attorneys are deciding whether to appeal the April 18 ruling or ask the judge to reconsider it, according to court records.

Calls to Charles Miller, a justice department spokesman, were not returned. Miller has said previously that federal officials would not comment on the lawsuit.

Stevens is "very happy" the lawsuit will proceed, although she would not comment further, Schuler said.

He said he would start requesting documents and scheduling depositions. But when he was asked what kind of information he would seek from the FBI, Schuler replied, "I cannot get into that."

Hurley also rejected a motion to dismiss Stevens' lawsuit against Battelle Memorial Institute. The lawsuit alleges that lax security and poor training of workers at the Columbus, Ohio-based facility led to anthrax ultimately being mailed to AMI. Calls to Martin Woods, an attorney for Battelle, were not returned.

In March, the judge dismissed Stevens' lawsuit against BioPort Corp. of Lansing, Michigan, the nation's sole manufacturer of anthrax vaccine.

BioPort "represented to us it did not use the Ames strain of anthrax that he contends killed Bob Stevens," Schuler said. In court filings, the company said it never possessed the Ames strain; it said it tested vaccines with the vollum strain of anthrax.

Gene sequencing conducted after the anthrax attacks revealed that anthrax spores recovered from Boca Raton, New York and Washington came from one source, the Ames strain. The strain originated in 1981 from a dead Texas cow and was later sent to Fort Detrick and other labs in the U.S. and Europe.

As federal attorneys respond to Hurley's rulings, it is far from clear what information about the anthrax investigation will ultimately come to light.

"The government will delay evidence gathering in any way they can," Schuler said.