12/05/2001

Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- A fugitive suspected of mailing hundreds of fake anthrax letters to abortion clinics was captured Wednesday, the FBI said.

FBI officials said Clayton Lee Waagner was caught in Cincinnati. He was among the FBI's 10 most-wanted fugitives. Attorney General John Ashcroft has called Waagner the primary suspect behind anthrax hoaxes committed against 280 abortion clinics last month.

Waagner, 45, claimed responsibility for the letters when he showed up with a gun at the Georgia home of an anti-abortion activist last week, police say.

Waagner has been on the lam since February, when he escaped from a jail in Clinton, Ill., where he was awaiting sentencing on federal firearms and auto theft convictions.

Waagner also was sought for bank robberies in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, the firearms violations in Tennessee and carjacking in Mississippi.

Ashcroft and others in federal law enforcement have said they're vigorously pursuing people who send anthrax threats as hoaxes, promising they will aggressively prosecute such individuals. Such acts cost local, state and federal valuable time that could be used to investigate actual anthrax threats, Ashcroft said.