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By Jill Barton
Associated Press Writer
Monday, August 26, 2002; 11:41 AM

BOCA RATON, Fla. –– The FBI plans this week to go back into an anthrax-contaminated building owned by tabloid publisher American Media Inc., where an employee was fatally infected last fall, officials said Monday.

In the first search of the building since it was quarantined and sealed last fall, agents will use newly developed techniques to search for anthrax spores and other evidence throughout the entire building in an effort to determine who was responsible for the attack.

Previous searches inside the building concentrated on a mailroom and workstations used by infected employees.

"We hope this investigation will bring to justice the person or persons responsible for this horrific act," said Hector Pesquera, the FBI's special agent in charge of the Miami division.

Pesquera stressed that the operation "has nothing to do" with Dr. Steven J. Hatfill, a biowarfare expert who has been called a "person of interest" by Attorney General John Ashcroft in the anthrax investigation.

Pesquera said the two-week operation inside the building should be under way by Wednesday.

"We don't believe there is a public health threat posed by this investigation," said Dr. John Agwunobi, secretary of the Florida Department of Health.

AMI has had to use other offices in the area to publish its six supermarket tabloids, including The National Enquirer, Globe and Weekly World News.

The building has been under federal quarantine since October, when photo editor Robert Stevens died after becoming infected at his desk. He was the first person to die during the anthrax attacks last fall, which killed five people.

Spores delivered by mail also hit media outlets in New York and a congressional building in Washington.

While transmission by mail was suspected at AMI, investigators have never determined for sure how anthrax spores entered the building. The original investigation did not locate a "dissemination device" or large quantities of spores of the deadly bacteria.

Pesquera said agents would collect "thousands and thousands" of new samples. He would not elaborate on the new techniques that will be used.

Dr. Dwight Adams, assistant director of the FBI's laboratory division, said investigators hoped to do a full assessment of any contamination throughout the building and the mailroom and to compare spores with infected letters mailed to Sens. Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Tom Daschle of South Dakota.

Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., said last week he would introduce legislation to require the federal government to help decontaminate the building, fearing a hurricane could spread anthrax spores.