Tenant of raided Agawam apartment has criminal past

AGAWAM -- The occupant of an apartment where federal agents found suspicious materials has a lengthy criminal record and a history of suing the government, court records show.

Michael Crooker, 50, has sued the government several times and spent years in state and federal prison for crimes ranging from larceny, possession of a machine gun, and being a felon in possession of a handgun and ammunition.

On Wednesday, police evacuated the apartment-house complex in which Crooker lives and closed off all public access to the area within 1,000 feet after unspecified suspicious materials were found inside his apartment.

Police Chief Robert Campbell said that the local health and building inspectors checked the complex early yesterday.

''The buildings were reissued occupancy permits, and life is normal again," Campbell said.

The roughly 50 residents in the complex's two buildings were allowed to return to their homes by about 10:30 a.m. By noon, the apartment complex had no recognizable federal or state agents in sight.

Jim McNally, spokesman for the regional office of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, said yesterday that, contrary to reports, agents who executed a search warrant on Crooker's apartment on Wednesday when he was arrested on firearms charges, did not fear they had found the deadly chemical ricin.

''If we had those concerns, we wouldn't have gone in there in regular clothing," McNally said.

Agents later donned biohazard suits because they weren't certain about the contents of unlabeled containers in Crooker's apartment.

The substances that were found, which federal agents declined to describe, were being tested in an FBI lab in Washington, D.C., and results are expected today, McNally said.

Crooker is being held on charges of transporting a firearm in interstate commerce as a felon. An affidavit with the complaint, filed in US District Court in Springfield, indicates that on June 14, federal ATF officials found an air rifle and ''what appears to be a homemade silencer" in a package addressed to Mike Paulus of Celina, Ohio, with a return address of M. Crooker, Apt. 29, 1162 Springfield Street, Feeding Hills, MA.

Crooker currently lives at that address, which is in a section of Agawam.

Michael Rosenwald of the Globe staff contributed to this report.