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Poison Letter Suspect Enters Her Plea

Pascale Ferrier pleads not guilty to charge of threatening the president
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 23, 2020 1:24 AM CDT
Canadian Woman Charged Over Ricin Letter to Trump
This photo provided by the Hidalgo County (Texas) Sheriff's Office, showing the booking photo of Pascale Ferrier.   (Texas) Sheriff's Office, via AP)

The Canadian woman who allegedly mailed a toxic letter to the White House has been charged with threatening the US president, CTV News reports. Pascale Ferrier, 53, of Quebec appeared in a Buffalo, New York, courtroom Tuesday to plead not guilty. Ferrier, who is accused of sending envelopes containing the poison ricin, is being held without bail. An affidavit filed Tuesday revealed that in a letter addressed to Trump, Ferrier allegedly wrote that if the ricin didn't work, she would find a recipe to create another poison, or just use her gun, which was allegedly loaded and in her waistband when she was arrested Sunday attempting to enter the US at the New York-Ontario border.

Authorities say she used wording like #killTrump and called the president an "Ugly Clown Tyrant" in social media posts this month, and says one of her notes to President Trump accused him of having "ruin[ed] USA and lead [sic] them to disaster." The affidavit also says Ferrier's fingerprints were found not only on the letter to Trump, but on six similar letters sent to addresses in Texas that also contained ricin. Those letters were sent to people affiliated with facilities where Ferrier was jailed last year, authorities say. She was behind bars for three months in that incident, after illegally carrying a weapon and using a fake driver's license. CBS News notes that the federal defender Ferrier requested for her current case will be paid for by US taxpayers. (More ricin stories.)

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