A Canadian woman who mailed a letter to President Trump containing a poisonous substance was sentenced to nearly 22 years in prison.
Pascale Cecile Veronique Ferrier, 56, mailed a letter containing the poison ricin to Trump in 2020 while he was in the White House.
Ferrier pleaded guilty to violating biological weapons prohibitions and will serve over two decades behind bars in Washington D.C., Fox News reports.
Canadian Sentenced To Nearly 22 Years For 2020 Poison Letter Sent To Trump At White House https://t.co/rK33ehm2HK #OAN
— One America News (@OANN) August 18, 2023
Fox News reports:
In the letter, Ferrier referred to Trump as “The Ugly Tyrant Clown” and laced it with the potentially deadly ricin, saying, “If it doesn’t work, I’ll find better recipe for another poison, or I might use my gun when I’ll be able to come. Enjoy! FREE REBEL SPIRIT.”
Ferrier was ultimately arrested trying to drive across the U.S.-Canada border at the Peace Bridge Border Crossing in Buffalo, New York, while carrying a gun, a knife and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, authorities said. The letter was intercepted at a mail sorting facility in September 2020, before it could reach the White House.
In court, Ferrier’s defense attorney Eugene Ohm said the “inordinately intelligent” French immigrant had no previous criminal record prior. He also highlighted that she had earned a master’s degree in engineering and raised two children as a single parent.
The judge ultimately sided with prosecutors, who argued that Ferrier made the ricin at home in Quebec and mailed the potentially deadly poison to Trump and to several police officials in Texas.
Ferrier was jailed for around 10 weeks in the spring 2019 after she refused to leave a park area after it closed. Investigators found eight similar letters sent to law enforcement officials in charge of the Texas jail where she was held.
Just In: Pascale Cecile Veronique Ferrier a dual citizen of Canada and France, was sentenced today to 22 years in prison for sending threatening letters with homemade ricin in Sept 2020, to the White House and Frm President Trump, as well as to 8 Texas State law enforcement. pic.twitter.com/BfDw55OTB5
— Ryan Sprouse (@RSprouseNews) August 17, 2023
CTV News added:
“I am not a terrorist,” Ferrier told Friedrich during a hearing Thursday in downtown Washington, inside the same courthouse where Trump pleaded not guilty to criminal charges two weeks ago.
“Terrorists widely spread terror and death by targeting innocent people. I saw my actions as an act of activism.”
Under the terms of the agreement, the French-born Ferrier pleaded guilty to a total of nine biological weapons charges, each of which carries a potential maximum sentence of life in prison. Only one of them is linked to the Trump letter. The rest are tied to an indictment in Texas, where Ferrier was accused of sending similar letters to police and prison officials after an altercation there in 2019.
She was arrested at the Canada-U.S. border in September 2020 and charged with sending the president a threatening letter laced with homemade ricin, a poison she brewed at her home in Montreal.
Intercepted two months before the 2020 election, the letter described Trump as an “ugly tyrant clown” and urged him to give up his bid to hold onto the White House.
“The only regret I have is that it didn’t work and I couldn’t stop Trump before he (executed his plan) to try to stay in power,” Ferrier told the court in her thick Parisian French accent.
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