Canadian woman charged with threatening Trump after letter with ricin mailed to White House

A 53-year-old Canadian woman has been charged with threatening President Donald Trump by allegedly mailing a letter laced with the poison ricin along with a message that referred to Trump as an "Ugly Tyrant Clown," and called on him to "remove your application for this election," according to court documents.

"I made a special gift for you to make a decision," Pascale Cecile Veronique Ferrier allegedly wrote, referring to the potentially lethal powdery substance inside. "If it doesn't work, I'll find a better recipe for another poison or I might use my gun when I'll be able to come. Enjoy!"

Ferrier, arrested Sunday at the U.S.-Canadian border, was carrying a knife and loaded gun tucked in her waistband, federal authorities said .

The suspect, a resident of Quebec, appeared briefly Tuesday in a federal court in Buffalo, New York, where she was ordered detained pending a Sept. 28 bail hearing.

U.S. Magistrate Judge H. Kenneth Schroeder, Jr., entered an initial plea of not guilty on Ferrier's behalf.

Assisted by an interpreter, the suspect, whose first language is French, said little during the the hearing.

The Secret Service intercepted the letter Sept. 18, at an off-site mail sorting and screening facility, before it reached the White House.

A Secret Service officer mans his post on the roof of the White House is seen on October 29, 2008, in Washington, DC.
A Secret Service officer mans his post on the roof of the White House is seen on October 29, 2008, in Washington, DC.

In addition to the Trump letter, federal investigators located six other similar mailings addressed to prison and detention center authorities in Texas, where the suspect had been arrested in March 2019 on a weapons possession charge.

Four of the letters allegedly bore fingerprints that matched the suspect, according to court documents. The mailings also contained language similar to the letter addressed to Trump, including the admonition: "If it doesn't work, I will find a better recipe."

A search of social media posting allegedly associated with Ferrier included threatening language directed at the president, along with identical phrases contained in the Trump letter.

In the Trump letter, Ferrier allegedly referred to "cousins" who live in the U.S., and her desire that the president not win another four-year term.

When Ferrier was initially detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection authorities on Sunday, she allegedly referred to "being wanted by the FBI for the ricin letters."

The Secret Service's initial testing of the substance in the Trump letter yielded a positive result for ricin. It was confirmed in a later examination at the National Bioforensic Analysis Center in Frederick, Maryland.

Ricin explained: Just how deadly is it, how does it kill?

Ricin, a poison drawn from the husks of castor beans, has surfaced in other plots targeting Trump, President Barack Obama and other officials. According to the Centers for Disease Control, exposure to ricin through inhalation, ingestion or injection can lead to death.

In 2018, a federal grand jury returned a seven-count indictment against a Utah man, alleging he threatened Trump and other administration officials in letters, some of which contained the natural ingredients used to make ricin.

In that case, a series of suspicious letters were addressed to Trump, then-Defense Secretary James Mattis, FBI Director Christopher Wray, CIA Director Gina Haspel and others.

In 2001, following the the 9/11 attacks, another form of bio-terrorism shook the country when letters containing anthrax were sent to congressional and media offices.

Those attacks killed five people and sickened more than a dozen others.

A microbiologist at the Army's elite infectious disease laboratory in Fort Detrick, Maryland, Bruce Ivins, committed suicide in 2008, as federal authorities were preparing to charge him in the attacks.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Canadian woman charged in ricin threat against President Trump