Foreign national who mailed ricin to Trump in 2020 sentenced to prison

Aug. 18 (UPI) -- A foreign national who mailed the biological weapon ricin to then-President Donald Trump in 2020 has been sentenced to 22 years in prison.

Pascale Cecile Veronique Ferrier, a 56-year-old dual citizen of Canada and France, was also sentenced to a lifetime of supervised release, according to a Justice Department news release. An order to remove her from the United States at the end of her imprisonment will also be issued.

Ferrier made the toxin at her home in Quebec, Canada, using the waste material left over from processing castor beans.

She then placed the ricin in envelopes with letters she wrote to Trump and mailed it to the White House and eight law enforcement officials in Texas in September 2020.

The letters contained threatening language and the one addressed to Trump particularly sought to direct him to "give up" the 2020 presidential election. Earlier that month, she had also posted to Twitter that someone should shoot Trump "in the face."

"Ferrier then drove a car from Canada to the Peace Bridge Border Crossing in Buffalo, N.Y., on Sept. 20, 2020, where border patrol officials found her in possession of a loaded firearm, hundreds of rounds of ammunition and other weapons, and arrested her," the Justice Department said.

Ferrier has remained in custody. She was previously detained in Texas for around 10 weeks in the spring of 2019.

"I consider myself to be an activist, not a terrorist. Activists are constructive, terrorists are destructive," Ferrier said during her sentencing hearing. "The only regret I have is that it didn't work and that I couldn't stop Trump."