A woman pleaded guilty Wednesday to sending letters with a homemade toxin to former President Donald Trump and she is expected to be sentenced to nearly 22 years in prison this April.
According to court documents cited by the U.S. Department of Justice, 55-year-old Pascale Cecile Veronique Ferrier – a dual citizen of Canada and France – admitted that she made ricin at her residence in Quebec, Canada, in September 2020.
“Ricin is a poison found naturally in castor beans,” explained the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “If castor beans are chewed and swallowed, the released ricin can cause injury. Ricin can be made from the waste material left over from processing castor beans.”
Ferrier placed the ricin she made in envelopes containing letters she wrote to Trump, as well as others with letters to Texas State law enforcement officials.
These letters contained threatening language, said the DOJ. Ferrier’s letter to Trump also allegedly demanded that he “[g]ive up and remove [his] application for this election.” She mailed the letters from Canada to the United States.
“In addition to her intended targets, Pascale Ferrier's reckless actions could have harmed postal employees, first responders, or innocent bystanders,” said David Sundberg, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI Washington Field Office. “Today’s plea agreement demonstrates the FBI's and our partners' determination to investigate and bring to justice those who seek to harm or intimidate government officials or law enforcement officers.”
After mailing the letters, Ferrier drove a car from Canada to the Peace Bridge Border Crossing in Buffalo, N.Y., on Sept. 20, 2020. There, border patrol officials found that she was in possession of a loaded firearm, hundreds of rounds of ammunition and other weapons. She was arrested and has remained in law enforcement custody.
Ferrier also tweeted “please shoot [T]rump in the face” in September 2020. She was previously detained for 10 weeks in Texas during spring of 2019, “and she believed that the law enforcement officials were connected to her period of detention,” according to the DOJ.
“This woman did not succeed in her efforts to poison numerous public officials in our district, but her actions still created fear and stress for many of these dedicated public servants,” said U.S. Attorney Alamdar S. Hamdani. “We are grateful for the hard work of the FBI and our other law enforcement partners in identifying and apprehending her.”
Judge Dabney L. Friedrich scheduled Ferrier’s sentencing hearing for April 26. She is expected to be sentenced to 262 months in prison, “if the Court accepts the plea agreements.”
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