April 26, 2002
A Palestinian man was acquitted yesterday of all charges in what federal prosecutors in Brooklyn said was an anthrax hoax in the midst of the country's anxieties about bioterrorism last fall.
Prosecutors had charged the man, Kamal Dawood, 51, with threatening to use a weapon of mass destruction on Oct. 30, 2001, after two school crossing guards in Bedford-Stuyvesant said they saw him repeatedly open a mailbox, deposit something in a closed fist, then stand around, drinking coffee. A powder in the mailbox tested negative for anthrax.
Links: The New York Times