A federal judge in Washington is ordering a journalist to pay up to $5,000 a day if she continues to refuse her sources.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton ordered former USA Today reporter Toni Locy to reveal the names of confidential sources for stories about 2001 anthrax attacks. At the time, she wrote about a former Army scientist, Steven J. Hatfill, whom the Justice Department identified in 2002 as a “person of interest” in the anthrax attacks, which led to 5 victims and other 17 people sickened weeks after the terrorist strikes of September 11, 2001.

Locy is one of six reporters Hatfill subpoenaed to disclose government sources who named him as a possible suspect in the anthrax attacks. The poison was mailed to several East Coast locations, killing five people.

If she continues to keep her sources private, Locy will have to pay $500 a day for a week, starting at midnight Tuesday, $1,000 per day for the second week and $5,000 a day after that until she reveals the names of dozens of sources she used in her stories, the Associated Press reported. She was also ordered to pay the amount from her pocket and neither her former employer nor anyone can help her.

In his ruling, Walton said he “appreciates the importance of the media's ability to freely report the news in a democratic society like the United States. But just as the First Amendment is a fundamental component of the American system, so too is the rule of law."

Locy, who now holds the Shott Chair of Journalism at West Virginia University, will owe $45,500, or about 60 percent of her salary if she holds out or three weeks. Locy already said that she could not afford the fines.

The Reporters Committee did not welcome Walton’s decision for the Freedom of the Press. Its executive director Lucy Dalglish said Walton appears to be trying to bankrupt Locy.

"What he’s doing is essentially saying, ’Toni Locy I am going to destroy your life’" she said. "This is just plain crazy. I know you’re not supposed to call a federal judge arrogant, but this is arrogant."

Locy’s attorneys plan to ask the U.S. Court of Appeals to suspend the payment, calling the fines “unprecedented.” Les Machado said the defense would ask the appeals court to postpone the payments pending appeal of the contempt order by U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton.