Canadian woman sentenced to 22 yrs for sending poison-laced letters to Trump, 8 peace officers
text_fields
Washington: A Canadian woman has been sentenced to 22 years in jail for sending ricin poison-laced letters to US former President Donald Trump and eight Texas law enforcement officials in September 2020.
On Thursday, US District Judge Dabney Friedrich sentenced 56-year-old Pascale Ferrier to 262 months in prison, months after she pleaded guilty.
Ferrier, a dual citizen of France and Canada, will be deported from the US after serving her sentence and will face supervision for life if she ever returns.
Judge Friedrich told Ferrier her actions were "potentially deadly" and "harmful to you, harmful to society, harmful to the potential victims".
She told the court that she regretted that her plan had failed and that she "couldn't stop Trump". In her address, she also said that she saw herself as an activist, not a terrorist.
"I want to find peaceful means to achieve my goals," Ferrier added.
“I found a new name for you: 'The Ugly Tyrant Clown’. I have US cousins, then I don’t want the next 4 years with you as President,” she wrote in the letter to Trump , according to Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) charging documents.
In 2019, she was detained in the state for about 10 weeks for unlawfully carrying a weapon and driving without a valid license, and she blamed those officials for that detention, according to a US Justice Department.
Ferrier was arrested crossing the border into Buffalo, New York in September 2020. She was carrying a gun, knife, and rounds of ammunition.
She later admitted to making the ricin, a poison that has no antidotes, at her Quebec home, and placing it into an envelope with the letter.
Depending on the dose, it can cause death within 36 to 72 hours, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Earlier, in 2014, a Mississippi man was also sentenced to 25 years in prison after sending ricin-laced letters to then-President Barack Obama and other officials.
With inputs from IANS
