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A federal appeals court heard oral arguments last week for reinstating a lawsuit filed against the U.S. Postal Service in relation to its handling of the October 2001 anthrax attacks.

The original suit filed in October 2003 was dismissed a year ago by District Judge Rosemary Collyer of the District of Columbia, who found that Postal Service officials were immune to the charges that they left employees in harm's way during the attacks. The workers had alternative avenues of recourse, such as the Federal Employees' Compensation Act, she said. She did not rule on whether the charges were accurate.

The lawsuit, heard by a panel of three judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, contends that the employees at the Brentwood postal facility in northeast Washington, D.C., were allowed to continue working at the facility despite the fact that officials knew on Oct. 18, 2001, that the "mail was leaking" anthrax spores.

Two Brentwood workers -- Joseph Curseen Jr. and Thomas Morris Jr. -- died of inhalation of anthrax and on Oct. 21, 2001, the facility was closed. It reopened more than two years later and has since been renamed in honor of Curseen and Morris.

Defendants in the lawsuit include Postmaster General John Potter, Vice President of Engineering Thomas Day and Senior Plant Manager Timothy Haney.

The appeals court could take four to five months to issue a decision on whether the case should be reinstated, according to Judicial Watch, a Washington-based watchdog group that filed the complaint on behalf of 2,300 Postal Service workers and a USPS support group, dubbed "Brentwood Exposed."

According to Judicial Watch, documents obtained from the Postal Service show that Haney, the Brentwood facility plant manager, knew that the mail was leaking anthrax spores and that multiple swab tests had turned up positive for the spore-forming bacteria Bacillus anthracis that causes anthrax.

Judicial Watch maintains that Brentwood workers are still dealing with health complications related to the 2001 anthrax incident.

"It has been almost exactly four years since the USPS and government officials misled postal workers about anthrax contamination, leading to the deaths of at least two innocent people and to the suffering of many others," Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said.

Postal Service spokesman Bob Anderson said he cannot comment on pending litigation, and will have to wait for the merits of the case to be decided.

Hurricane Frances Fraud

A former Federal Emergency Management Agency inspector has been arrested by federal agents on charges of inflating applicants' claims for disaster relief in Miami-Dade County, Fla., in exchange for kickbacks.

Tywanishia Preston was indicted on counts of receipt of bribes by a public official and making false and fraudulent claims. She was arraigned Oct. 27 before Magistrate Judge John O'Sullivan in the Southern District of Florida.

Miami-Dade was declared a disaster area after Hurricane Frances made landfall Sept. 5, 2004, 100 miles north of the county.

If convicted, Preston could face a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison for receiving the bribes and a maximum prison sentence of five years for each count of making false statements.

The case was handled by R. Alexander Acosta, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida; Donald J. Balberchak, special agent in charge of the Homeland Security Department's Office of Inspector General Miami Field Office; and Enrique Gutierrez, inspector in charge for the U.S. Postal Inspection Service's Miami Division.

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