A Texas woman accused of sending ricin-laced letters to President Barack Obama and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has reached a plea deal with federal prosecutors, a newspaper reported Saturday.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank Coan added into the case docket for Shannon Guess Richardson a one-line entry that states “notice of plea agreement,” the Texarkana Gazette reported.
Authorities say the New Boston, Texas, actress mailed ricin-laced letters to Obama, Bloomberg and a leader of the mayor’s gun-control group. Court documents state the then-pregnant Richardson tried to frame her husband for the crime.
The terms of the deal have not yet been made public, and a Dec. 2 pretrial hearing has been cancelled. However, it is possible that the terms of the agreement will be discussed at another hearing, the newspaper reported. Typically, as part of a plea deal, a hearing is held so a defendant can change their plea to guilty.
Richardson’s court-appointed attorney, Tonda Curry, did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
Richardson, 35, has been charged with two counts of threat by mail and one of threatening the president. She remains jailed after giving birth in July.
Richardson has been in federal custody since June 7. Later that month, a federal grand jury handed down the three-count indictment.
Authorities allege that Richardson created a ricin-type concoction using castor beans, bulk lye and syringes she ordered over the Internet. Three letters she mailed, one to Obama, one to Bloomberg and a third to Michael Glaze, head of the gun-control group, tested positive for ricin, according to an FBI criminal complaint.
If convicted, Richardson could face up to five years in federal prison for each offense and a fine of up to $250,000.
Ricin occurs naturally in castor beans. It can take several forms, including powder or mist, and can be especially dangerous if inhaled or ingested. There is no known antidote.
Richardson’s case mirrored an episode in April in which letters laced with the deadly poison were sent to the president, a Mississippi senator and a local Mississippi judge. The Federal Bureau of Investigation quickly arrested Paul Kevin Curtis of Corinth, Miss., who happens to be an Elvis impersonator. But the charges were dropped and another man, a rival of Curtis’s, was arrested. That man, J. Everett Dutschke, was charged not only with mailing the letters, but also with trying to frame Curtis. The first case may have inspired the second. A computer from the Richardson household revealed Internet searches for the Mississippi ricin case, according to a criminal complaint.
Earlier this week, Dutschke, a former taekwondo instructor in Tupelo, Miss., was indicted — for the second time — on suspicion of trying to frame Curtis in the case. This time Dutschke, 42, is accused of trying to carry out a plot from jail, according to a superseding indictment filed Wednesday in federal court in Mississippi.
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