By JESSE HOLLAND
Associated Press

WASHINGTON - A federal appeals court Monday threw out a contempt order requiring fines of up to $5,000 a day against a former USA Today reporter who refused to identify sources for stories about the 2001 anthrax attacks.

Toni Locy had been ordered by a judge to personally pay the fines unless she identified officials who discussed Steven Hatfill, who was named a person of interest in the anthrax attacks but was eventually exonerated by the Justice Department.

A former Army scientist, Hatfill sued the federal government for violating his privacy by talking to reporters. Locy was drawn into the lawsuit after she was asked to reveal her sources. When she said she couldn't remember, U.S. District Judge Hon. Reggie Walton ordered her to identify all her sources who discussed any aspect of the anthrax case. When she refused, Walton placed her in contempt and ordered the fines.

Since then, Hatfill has been awarded $5.8 million to settle the Justice lawsuit.

Also Monday, U.S. District Judge Hon. Royce Lamberth ordered the Justice Department to release the information it used to persuade the courts to let it search Hatfill's home. Lamberth said the government's search warrants and supporting documents relating to Hatfill and then-girlfriend Peck Chegne should be made public.

The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times asked for the materials to be released, contending the public has a right to know why investigators wanted to search Hatfill's home and on what basis the courts agreed to allow those searches.

Five people were killed and 17 sickened when anthrax was mailed to Capitol Hill lawmakers and members of the media weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

After the attacks, Attorney General John Ashcroft called Hatfill a person of interest in the investigation, and stories by various reporters, including Locy, followed. Hatfill had worked at the Army's infectious diseases laboratory from 1997 to 1999.

In Locy's case, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit threw out the contempt order Monday and dismissed the case. However, Hon. Douglas Ginsburg, Hon. Brett Kavanaugh and Hon. Judith Rogers said the appeal raised "close questions" about federal evidentiary rules and the First Amendment.

"Because the underlying case has been settled, however, there is no longer ‘a pending trial in which' the appellee's request for disclosure ‘can be used,' " the judges wrote.

Locy, a former reporter with The Associated Press and a former West Virginia University journalism teacher, now teaches legal journalism at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va.

"I am concerned that this matter may not be over given statements by Dr. Hatfill's lawyers that they intend to ask Judge Walton to force me to pay Dr. Hatfill's legal bills," sje said. "The circuit did not deal with that issue, and I could face a legal bill that far exceeds the fines that Judge Walton initially tried to levy against me."

Gregg Leslie, legal defense director at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said the dismissal of the case likely means that Hatfill will not be able to go after Locy for attorneys' fees.

The panel's decision can still be appealed, Leslie said.

Lamberth said Chegne's search-warrant material for her apartment and car should also be released, although she has not made her information public like Hatfill did with his lawsuit against the Justice Department. The judge said there were no "highly intimate or personal details of the kind that would present a compelling interest in not releasing the materials."

Hatfill and Chegne did not appear to argue that the material should be kept private. Justice Department lawyers asked Lamberth to let Hatfill "get on with his life."

"The public has made a strong showing of need for the materials, much of the information is already in the public forum and there is no possibility of prejudice to an investigation or a future defendant," Lamberth said in the opinion. "These considerations, weighed against the government's generalized assertion that Dr. Hatfill has a privacy right to ‘get on with his life,' mean that the Times would prevail even under a common-law standard."

Bruce Ivins, the Army scientist eventually accused of carrying out the 2001 anthrax attacks, committed suicide in July as prosecutors prepared to charge him in the attacks.