NYDailyNews

Telltale Slipup in Hate Mail Crude error in letters to Brokaw & Daschle

By GREG B. SMITH Daily News Staff Writer

Investigators tracking the trail of anthrax letters to NBC anchor Tom Brokaw and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle have found what may have been a telltale mistake.

Both hate-filled letters came in unusual envelopes embossed with the postage, not the usual kind with postage stamps.

The envelopes could have been purchased from a stamp machine, but if they were bought at a post office, the buyer may have been captured on videotape.

The person also may have been caught on tape mailing the letters.

Postal inspectors' agents fanned out across New Jersey yesterday, questioning employees and gathering videotapes at 46 post offices that funnel mail to Trenton.

"It makes the needle fatter and the haystack smaller," said Tony Esposito of the U.S. Postal Inspectors in New Jersey. "You have two different points of arrival." Esposito said agents will review post office videotapes from Sept. 18 and Oct. 9 — the two dates the letters were postmarked.

Agents will look to see anyone buying the unusual prepaid envelopes or mailing them.

"I don't think it's impossible," he said. "We're using every resource we have to identify the entry point for the envelopes and ultimately who mailed them."

Investigators also note that the envelopes could have been purchased only within the last few months because of the postage used — an eagle over a No. 34.

Similarities Noted

Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller said yesterday there is no hard evidence that the anthrax attacks are connected to the Sept. 11 assaults on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

But they noted that there were were similarities between the letters that indicated a conspiracy.

"While organized terrorism has not been ruled out, so far we have found no direct link to organized terrorism," said Mueller. "There are, however, certain similarities between letters sent to NBC in New York and to Sen. Daschle's office here in Washington."

Ashcroft said the handwriting was similar in both, but the envelopes themselves offered other clues.

Both feature carefully written block letters, all capitals, with the script drifting downward. The numbers are different, but many of the letters are similar. Neither envelope has extraneous comments often found on hate mail.

The letter to Daschle has the most clues. It was postmarked Oct. 9 at the Trenton facility, two days after anthrax was discovered in the Boca Raton, Fla., offices of American Media, the supermarket tabloid company. Bill Stevens, a photo editor, had died two days earlier of inhaled anthrax.

On Monday, a staffer at Daschle's office opened the letter and discovered a white powder that tested positive for a very pure and powerful form of anthrax.

The senator and several staff members have been tested, but the results have not been released.

The Daschle envelope contains a bizarre return address — 4th Grade, Greendale School, Franklin Park, N.J. — which does not exist, investigators said.

Investigators said another red flag on the envelope is that the zip code for Franklin Park is 08823, while the zip code on the envelope is 08852.

The letter to Brokaw had no return address and was postmarked at a mail facility in Trenton about three weeks before the Daschle letter, on Sept. 18.

-- Anonymous, October 17, 2001