a lawsuit filed by Hatfill against The New York Times. On January 30, 2007, Judge Hilton's order dismissing the Hatfill v. The New York Times was made public, along with a Memorandum Opinion explaining his ruling. Kenneth A. Richieri, Vice President and General Counsel of The New York Times described what he called a "very satisfying win" at the beginning of 2007 in the Eastern District of Virginia. The newspaper won a summary judgment ruling squelching a libel suit that had been filed by anthrax poisoning "person of interest" Steven Hatfill against it and columnist Nicholas Kristof. The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed the trial court, ruling that a jury should decide that issue. In March 2008, the Supreme Court refused to grant certiorari in the case, effectively leaving the appeals court decision in place. The case was dismissed in a Summary Judgment on January 12, 2007. The appeals were heard on March 21, 2008, and the dismissal was upheld by the appeals court on July 14, 2008. The case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court and was rejected by the Supreme Court on Dec. 15, 2008. The basis for the dismissal was that Dr. Hatfill was a "public figure", and he had not proved malice on the part of The New York Times. see: New York Times Co. v. Sullivan Hatfill v. Foster Donald Foster, an expert in forensic linguistics, advised the FBI during the investigation of the anthrax attacks. He later wrote an article for Vanity Fair about his investigation of Hatfill. In the October 2003 article Foster described how he had tried to match up Hatfill's travels with the postmarks on the anthrax letters, and analyzed old interviews and an unpublished novel by Hatfill about a bioterror attack on the United States. Foster wrote that "When I lined up Hatfill's known movements with the postmark locations of reported biothreats, those hoax anthrax attacks appeared to trail him like a vapor cloud". Hatfill subsequently sued Donald Foster, Condé Nast Publications, Vassar College, and The Reader's Digest Association. The suit sought $10 million in damages, claiming defamation. The Reader's Digest published a condensed version of the article in December 2003. The lawyers delayed bringing the Hatfill v. Foster lawsuit to court because "the parties are close to finalizing the settlement". On February 27, 2007, The New York Sun reported that he settled without a