LOS ANGELES - An employee of the Queen Mary tourist attraction was charged Thursday with creating an anthrax scare that caused authorities in Long Beach harbor to seal off the historic British ocean liner for several hours.

District attorney's spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons said a carpenter working at the site Tuesday was throwing out rubbish when he saw a five-gallon bucket in a trash bin. Written in red ink were the words: "DANGER. DO NOT OPEN. ANTRAX."

Security was notified and the Queen Mary was sealed off while authorities tested the bucket contents, which turned out to be rotten beans and chili, Gibbons said.

Police arrested Dionicio Garcia, 20, and charged him with two felonies _ a threat to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempted criminal threats. He also was charged with misdemeanor counts of terrorism and causing a false report of an emergency.

Garcia pleaded innocent at an arraignment and was held in lieu of $500,000 bail. The charges carry a penalty of between five and eight years in state prison, Gibbons said.

The Queen Mary, docked in Long Beach since 1967, offers tours, a hotel, restaurants and other facilities.

Garcia had been laid off from his job as a runner-cashier but was rehired about three weeks ago, according to the district attorney's office.

On Tuesday, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft declared that anthrax hoaxes are "grotesque transgressions of the public trust" and that people who fake anthrax or other terrorist scares will face federal prosecution.

Local governments in several states have filed criminal charges against people suspected of other anthrax hoaxes. The suspects included a Pennsylvania firefighter who claimed to have received a letter containing white powder; a nurse who sprinkled powder in her boss's office; and a high school student in Florida who put headache powder on his teacher's desk, hoping it would cause the school to cancel classes.