In a recent development, a woman has been sentenced to a prison term of nearly 22 years for dispatching letters laced with homemade poison to former President Donald Trump in 2020.
Pascale Cecile Veronique Ferrier, a 55-year-old dual citizen of Canada and France, was also ordered lifetime supervised release for the threatening letters she dispatched to Trump and eight state-level law enforcement officials in Texas.
Ricin, a poison that naturally occurs in castor beans, was the substance used in the letters, as per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The poison can be produced from the waste material that remains after processing the beans.
Following the dispatch of the letters, Ferrier drove to the Peace Bridge Border Crossing between Buffalo, New York, and Fort Erie, Ontario, Canada. On September 20, 2020, Border Patrol officers halted her, discovering a loaded firearm, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, and other weapons, as stated by the Department of Justice.
NBC News reported that Ferrier informed the border guards of her being sought by the FBI, as per court filings. The other weapons in her possession reportedly included two knives, a stun gun, pepper spray, a truncheon (baton), and a "false identification document."
Ferrier has been in custody since that day, as reported by TimCast. In January 2023, she pleaded guilty and admitted in plea agreements that she had manufactured ricin at her residence in Quebec, Canada.
It is speculated that Ferrier targeted the eight law enforcement officials due to her belief that they were linked to a previous incident in 2019, when she was detained in Texas for approximately 10 weeks.
The Department of Justice reported that Ferrier had posted on social media, urging someone to please shoot [T]rump in the face. Her letters to the former president contained threatening language and instructed Trump to [g]ive up and remove [his] application for this election. All the letters were dispatched from Canada.
Before her sentencing, Ferrier reportedly told the judge that she was an "activist," not a terrorist. "The ricin I made didnt have a harmful concentration. It was just a strong warning. I did not target innocent people. It was never my intention to harm innocent people, and in fact, I did not harm anyone," she stated. Ferrier expressed her "only regret" was that Trump didn't heed her warning and ran for president.
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