Washington ? The bioterrorism expert under scrutiny in the 2001 anthrax attacks sued Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft and other government officials Tuesday, accusing them of using him as a scapegoat for their failure to make an arrest in the case.

Dr. Steven J. Hatfill said Ashcroft and other federal authorities destroyed his reputation and ruined his job prospects by labeling him a “person of interest” in the case, circulating his photo and improperly leaking aspects of the investigation to the media.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, said Hatfill was under 24-hour surveillance, leaving him unable to freely talk to his girlfriend, family or friends.

“The attorney general and his subordinates have taken Dr. Hatfill’s life as he knows it,” Hatfill’s attorney, Thomas Connolly, said at a news conference at the federal courthouse. “They have made him a prisoner in his own home. All this without any evidence linking Dr. Hatfill to the attack and without bringing formal charges against him.”

Hatfill wants his name cleared and seeks unspecified damages from Ashcroft, the Justice Department, the FBI and other current and former FBI and Justice Department officials.

FBI officials declined to comment. Justice Department spokesman Mark Corallo also declined to discuss the case, but he released a January memo from H. Marshall Jarrett, a counsel with the agency’s Office of Professional Responsibility.

Jarrett dismissed Hatfill’s charges that Ashcroft engaged in professional misconduct by describing Hatfill as a person of interest. “We concluded that your statements did not violate any law, regulation or Department of Justice policy or standard,” Jarrett wrote in a memo.

Federal officials have said Hatfill is not a suspect and that they have no evidence directly linking him to the October 2001 attacks in which anthrax-laced envelopes were sent to government and media offices. Five people died, and 17 others were sickened.