A woman who sent poison-laced letters to the White House, addressed to former President Donald Trump, was sentenced to almost 22 years in prison by the U.S. District Judge today.
According to a federal plea agreement, Pascal Cecile Veronqiue Ferrier, 56, a dual citizen of Canada and France, made ricin in her Quebec home for the purpose of lacing letters with poison. In Sept. 2020, she mailed the letters to then president Trump as well as eight Texas law enforcement officials.
Ferrier was sentenced to 262 months in prison as well as a lifetime sentence of supervised release by the U.S. District Judge Dabney L. Friedrich.
Once Ferrier has served her prison time, she will be permanently deported from the U.S.
During her hearing, Ferrier addressed the court to read a statement in which referred to herself as a “peaceful person.” She expressed no remorse for her actions in her statement.
“Terrorists widely spread terror and death by targeting innocent people. I saw my actions as an act of activism,” said Ferrier. “I consider myself to be an activist, not a terrorist.”
“Activists are constructive, terrorists are destructive.” she said. “It was never my intention to harm innocent people. And in fact, I did not harm anyone.”
“The only regret I have is that it didn’t work and that I couldn’t stop Trump,” she said.
U.S. attorney Michael Friedman was the prosecutor in the case, arguing that Ferrier’s offences, “involved, or was intended to promote, a federal crime of terrorism.”
“There is absolutely no place for politically motivated violence in the United States of America,” said Friedman.
This was potentially deadly,” said Judge Friedrich. “It’s harmful to you, harmful to society, harmful to the potential victims.”
Judge Friedrich went on to express his discouragement in Ferrier, regarding her lack of self awareness.
“I’m discouraged that there’s not either a realization or a willingness to look internally at what prompted this very inconsistent, almost aberrant behaviour, for your own future and your own peace of mind,” the judge said. “It’s almost like two different personalities.”
According to the plea argument, written inside the letters was a reference to a “special gift,” which went on to say, “If it doesn’t work, I will find a better recipe for another poison.”
Ferrier wrote in one of the letters that she “might use my gun when I will be able to come.”
In the letter Ferrier sent to Trump, she wrote, “You ruin USA and lead them to disaster. I have US cousins, then I don’t want the next 4 years with you as President. Give up and remove your application for this election!”
The plea also includes previous letters Ferrier sent in 2019 while she was being detained in Texas for a number of weeks. Ferrier later sent poisonous letters containing ricin to law enforcement officials that she believed were involved in her detention.
Ferrier mailed the letters from Canada in 2020 and was later apprehended while attempting to cross the Canada-U.S. border in September 2020.
During the stop, border agents discovered she was carrying a loaded gun, hundreds of rounds of ammunition and several other weapons. It was then that Ferrier confessed to being on an FBI wanted list for mailing the letters.
Ferrier pleaded guilty to nine separate biological weapons charges, each of which carries a potential maximum sentence of life in prison.
