Former Army scientist Steven J. Hatfill will receive some compensation for being wrongly accused by Justice Department officials in an anthrax attack.

Mr. Hatfill was never formerly charged in the anthrax mailings that killed five people, sickened 17 others shortly after Sept. 11 and raised the specter of a biological terrorist attack.

As the investigation went on without a conclusion, then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft in mid-2002 publicly identified Mr. Hatfill as a "person of interest," which drew intense public attention and media focus on him, as might be expected. In doing so, Mr. Hatfill was labeled and stigmatized, smeared.

Mr. Hatfill denied the accusations. Caravans of FBI agents trailed him. One surveillance car even ran over his foot as he approached the vehicle to take a picture; Mr. Hatfill was issued a ticket for "walking to create a hazard."

His conversations were wiretapped. He lost his job at a government-funded university under pressure from the Department of Justice. His reputation was ruined. "Person of interest" appeared to be a tactic to convict him in the public mind through guilt by accusation.

Mr. Hatfill sued the Justice Department in 2003. The federal judge hearing the case urged a settlement, saying, there "is not a scintilla of evidence that would indicate that Dr. Hatfill had anything to do with this."

Last week, he accepted a $5.85 million settlement which will pay him $2.8 million immediately. For another 20 years, he will receive $150,000 annually, which was his salary when he was forced out of his Louisiana State University job.

The investigation into Mr. Hatfill was flawed. It broke several established procedures, according to a Los Angeles Times report by David William's who wrote that "FBI agents chafed at their supervisors' obsession with Hatfill."

"Other potential suspects and leads were ignored or given insufficient attention, investigators said," the Times reported.

The FBI's very public probe, which can tip off other suspects, went against its usual tightlipped refusal to comment on matters or suspects under investigation. With the settlement, the anthrax investigation is back in the public eye, with renewed questions about what went wrong while the perpetrators remain at large more than six years later.