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Texas actor pleads guilty of sending toxin-laced letters to Obama

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Texas actor Shannon Guess Richardson has been sentenced to 18 years on a biological weapons charge for mailing letters containing the toxic agent ricin to United States President Barack Obama, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and a gun control advocate, reported Reuters.

Richardson, 36, whose career included minor television roles in shows such as The Walking Dead and The Vampire Diaries, will also be subject to five years of supervised release and restitution of $367,000.

Three envelopes were mailed from Shreveport, Louisiana in May 2013, which contained the natural and highly toxic compound derived from castor beans, CNN reported. This was preceded by Richardson making online purchases of castor beans and lye, another component of ricin.

According to court documents, the letters read, in part: “You will have to kill me and my family before you get my guns. Anyone wants to come to my house will get shot in the face.” They also issued a baleful warning: “What’s in this letter is nothing compared to what I’ve got planned for you.”

Shackled and clad in the brown uniform of an inmate, she apologised in a federal court in Texarkana, Texas, to Obama, Bloomberg and Mark Glaze, the director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a group founded by Bloomberg that lobbies for stricter gun laws.

“I never intended to hurt anyone,” she said. Prosecutors said that in December, the actor pleaded guilty to possession of a toxin for use as a weapon. Although the maximum penalty of the charge is life in prison, a lawyer for Richardson and US prosecutors reached a plea deal in December for an 18-year sentence.

Richardson said she took the deal because she did not want to be “listed as a terrorist.” “I wouldn’t go down that road,” she said in court. Richardson tried to blame her husband, Nathaniel Richardson, for the letters that were sent in May last year, according to prosecutors. But authorities found her to be “deceptive” in a polygraph exam.

In a court document signed by Richardson, she outlined how she extracted the toxin with materials she bought with her husband’s credit card. She was arrested in June 2013 and a federal grand jury accused her in a three-count indictment of mailing the letters to Obama, Bloomberg and Glaze.

Ricin, a highly toxic substance, is found naturally in castor beans, but it takes a deliberate act to manufacture it and use it to poison people, according to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

Exposure to even a small amount of ricin can cause death and no known antidote exists. The letters contained “very low concentrations” of ricin, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. They were discovered before they could cause any fatalities. One mail clerk, however, suffered minor injuries from the letters Richardson sent.

The Second Amendment to the US Constitution has been long under the gun and open carry demonstrations are still prevalent in some parts of the US, especially Texas. Amid ongoing debate on gun control and use of biological weapons, which contain toxins such as ricin as agents, unusual cases such as the Richardson one could possibly help in putting Congress and US citizens into overdrive.

Compiled By: Ayesha Shaikh

Published in The Express Tribune, July 18th, 2014.

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