A Canadian woman who mailed letters laced with ricin to then-President Donald Trump — as well as to several law enforcement officials across the Rio Grande Valley — has pleaded guilty to nine counts of possession of a biological toxin.
After reaching a plea agreement with federal prosecutors, Pascale Cecile Veronique Ferrier, 55, of Quebec, pleaded guilty on Wednesday in Washington D.C. federal court to mailing the toxin-tainted letters to the former president as well as to eight people in South Texas in 2020 during the pandemic.
In exchange for her plea, the government has agreed to recommend Ferrier be sentenced 21 years and 10 months in prison, to be followed by a term of supervised release.
Hidalgo County Sheriff J.E. “Eddie” Guerra and then-chief of the Mission Police Department, Robert Dominguez, were among those Ferrier targeted locally.
So, too, was Brooks County Sheriff Urbino “Benny” Martinez.
Ferrier also mailed letters to jailers at various facilities, including a sergeant and two corporals at the Hidalgo County Adult Detention Center; the warden of the Brooks County Detention Center; and the deputy warden of the El Valle Detention Center in Raymondville.
All the letters contained threatening language and the same cryptic message written in blue ink with block lettering.
“I made a ‘Special Gift’ for you, which is this letter. But if it doesn’t work, I will find another recipe for another poison,” the letters read.
Guerra said it was keen-eyed assistant who first discovered the potentially deadly correspondence.
“My administrative assistant opens my mail and she opened the mail and immediately saw that there was a white powdery substance in there and so she immediately called me,” Guerra said Wednesday. “I immediately notified the postal inspectors and the FBI with this and the FBI came over and took custody of the letter.”
Then, a happenstance conversation with a fellow brother-in-blue likely prevented others from being harmed.
“I just so happened to mention to the chief of Mission about the letter,” Guerra said.
That chief, Dominguez, soon called Guerra back and told him he had found a letter from Ferrier in a pile of “mail stacked up on a table,” the sheriff said. The FBI took that into custody, as well.
In her letter to the president, Ferrier called Trump “the ugly tyrant clown.”
“You ruin USA and lead them to disaster,” the letter further reads.
Ferrier also demanded that Trump withdraw his candidacy from the 2020 General Election and said if her letter didn’t work to harm him that she would instead “use my gun when I’ll be able to come.”
In one of the letters sent to Valley officials, Ferrier claimed that law enforcement officers were “a member of tyrants gang (sic)” and that “the best way to eliminate tyrants is to kill them.”
Ferrier signed all of the letters with “free rebel spirit.”
Border agents arrested Ferrier at a Buffalo, New York port of entry as she attempted to re-enter the country in September 2020.
They found a Kel-Tec handgun, ammunition, several knives, a stun gun, a truncheon, pepper spray and fake identification inside her car.
Authorities later searched her Canada home and discovered packages of castor beans and other materials that she had used to formulate the poison.
Investigators also found a piece of home décor — a tabletop sign that read “FREE REBEL SPIRIT.”
Prosecutors in Washington D.C. charged her with three counts of threatening to kill or injure the president, threats in interstate communications and prohibition with respect to biological weapons.
Ferrier also faced a multitude of counts for the letters she mailed to the Valley.
Federal prosecutors in Brownsville charged her with eight counts of possessing a biological toxin and eight counts of threat over interstate commerce.
On Wednesday, Ferrier agreed to plead guilty to the biological weapons charges from both the Washington and Brownsville cases. In exchange, the government will recommend the dismissal of the remaining counts against her from both cases.
Ferrier may also face between $40,000 to $500,000 in fines.
The judge may further find that her actions constitute a “federal crime of terrorism,” which could further enhance her sentence, according to the 15-page plea agreement filed with the court on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, for Guerra, news of Ferrier’s guilty plea represents the end to a chapter in the story of a year filled with hardship, between the COVID-19 pandemic and the threats Ferrier made to him, his staff and other law enforcement.
But the sheriff lauded local law enforcement for how quickly they zoned in on Ferrier.
“I was really proud of my federal partners and at my office at the speed at which they were able to put this investigation forward and identify the suspect,” Guerra said.
Guerra was also pleased with Ferrier’s proposed punishment.
“We’re not going to be lenient. You threaten law enforcement, you threaten the president, you threaten any elected official, we’re gonna ask for the maximum punishment. … 21 years is satisfactory in my book,” Guerra said.
