Scientist in Miami Airport Scare Has Rap Sheet

(CBS/ AP)  A scientist detained at Miami International Airport because of a suspicious item in his luggage had once been charged with illegally transporting bubonic plague, a senior law enforcement official said.

No dangerous material was found on 70-year-old Thomas Butler after he was detained Thursday night, the official told The Associated Press on Friday. Butler had been acquitted of the charges of transporting the potentially deadly germ in 2003.

Butler was interviewed by 60 Minutes in 2003 about the case.

60 Minutes: The Case Against Dr. Butler

Butler cooperated fully after he arrived on a flight from the Middle East, said the official, who requested anonymity because he wasn't authorized to release the information.

CBS station WFOR in Miami has learned that Butler's trip to the United States started in Saudi Arabia. He then changed planes in London and was going to change planes in Miami before ultimately ending up in San Juan Puerto Rico.

Most of the airport was shut down Thursday night after officials found a suspicious metal canister in Butler's luggage. A Homeland Security spokesman said at first it looked like a pipe bomb, but no explosives were found.

The senior law enforcement official told the AP that a Transportation Safety Administration inspector noticed an odd container as Butler was going through Customs after arriving on a flight from the Middle East, where he had been teaching at a Saudi Arabian university.

Those facts caused the inspector to run Butler's name in a database and discover that he had been tried on the plague charges in 2003. Officials decided to evacuate the airport and detain Butler.

Tests showed that Butler, the container and his other belongings did not contain any hazardous biological material or explosives. He was released Friday morning. No one answered the door at an address in Lubbock, Texas, listed as his on a U.S. Department of Commerce website.

A Miami-Dade police bomb squad spent hours scouring the airport. Between 100 and 200 passengers were evacuated from four of the airport's six concourses. Airport roadways and a hotel near the airport's international terminal were closed down. Police and airport officials described the shutdown of the concourses as a public safety precaution.

Butler is a professor at Ross University in Dominica on a teaching assignment in Saudi Arabia, said another government official who also requested anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation.

In 2003, the world-renowned plague researcher prompted a bioterrorism scare when he reported that 30 vials of plague samples possibly had been stolen from his Texas Tech lab. Within hours, dozens of federal agents swarmed to Lubbock.

A frantic search for the vials ended when Butler gave FBI agents a written statement in which he admitted a "misjudgment" in not telling his supervisor that the vials had been "accidentally destroyed," according to court records.

Before Butler's trial, leading scientific organizations expressed concern about the criminal case against him and its effect on infectious disease research. Four Nobel laureates said in an open letter that Butler had been "subjected to unfair and disproportionate treatment" and that prosecuting his case "is having a negative impact on the future of research in this crucial national-security-related field."

Butler testified that FBI agents forced him to make the admission to calm the public's fears.

He was acquitted of the most serious charges of smuggling and illegally transporting the potentially deadly germ, and of lying to federal agents about the missing vials.

Jurors found Butler guilty of the mislabeling and unauthorized export of a FedEx package that contained plague samples he sent to Tanzania. An appeals court upheld his convictions and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the case.

Butler served two years in prison and he was on supervised release until 2008. He also agreed to retire from the university and to surrender his medical license.

He is not currently licensed in Texas, a spokeswoman for the Texas Medical Board said Friday.

Passengers, workers and others were allowed back in just as the airport was expecting the first of 1,500 passengers on flights between 4 a.m. and 6 a.m. alone - and more thereafter.

"Everything's back to normal," airport spokesman Greg Chin told the AP.

Lennox Lewis, was waiting to fly to Barbados later Friday morning in one of the four concourses that had been closed.

He said the Miami airport is "one of the most stringent" to get through because he has to be fingerprinted and have his picture taken at customs.

"Traveling right now is a pain but you have to do it," said 39-year-old Lewis, who was flying with his two small children after a trip to North Carolina and Disney World. "I don't get overly worried that people will do stupid things."

[bobnjersey]

[He served two years in prison for illegally transporting samples of the plague and was later forced out of his teaching position at Texas Tech University. Butler was convicted in 2003 on 47 counts of illegal transportation of a biohazard material. ]

so ... he not only has a history ... but had to pay a huge price for his past actions ... and now he has something that's interpreted as suspicious and there's no requirement for him to declare that he has this in his checked baggage.

why didn't he just fed-ex the thing from where he began his trip ... to where he was going ... instead of creating a huge disruption in a public venue?

[RichardUSA2]

Witch hunt. They took a highly respected man, turned him into a "criminal" and now keep on hounding him.

Fear, raw fear, ignorance, and arrogance is what this is about. It isn't about our security. Not with this guy.

[Myopinion046]

Whatever.

[Myopinion046]

Change the whatever to I'm glad the system is working.

[doctor_know]

It is? This was a huge hassle for hundreds of people..... Im sure it cost a lot of taxpayer money.... for nothing.

[us_1776]

This kooky scientist, Butler, needs to be on the NO-FLY list.

Who knows what bioterror agents this guy flies around with in his pockets and luggage.



.

[doctor_know]

Why? He was never guilty of anything?

[legacyABQ2]

So now metal cans are bombs, I guess no one better get caught transporting a Pepsi, cuz then you'll be marked as the terrorist you no doubt are..

How stupid..

We are scared of our own shadow cuz of a dozen extremists. Thanks America, life is so much better now that we're "safe".

Stupidity everywhere.. You are more likely to get hit by lightning and b it by a shark ON THE SAME DAY as get bombed by terrorists.

[bobnjersey]

[He served two years in prison for illegally transporting samples of the plague and was later forced out of his teaching position at Texas Tech University. Butler was convicted in 2003 on 47 counts of illegal transportation of a biohazard material. ]

so ... he not only has a history ... but had to pay a huge price for his past actions ... and now he has something that's interpreted as suspicious and there's no requirement for him to declare that he has this in his checked baggage.

why didn't he just fed-ex the thing from where he began his trip ... to where he was going ... instead of creating a huge disruption in a public venue?