Canadian woman jailed for 22 years for sending poisoned letter to Trump

Washington (IANS). A US court has sentenced a Canadian woman to 22 years in prison for sending poisoned letters to former President Donald Trump during his tenure.

On Thursday, District Judge Dabney Frederick sentenced 56-year-old Pascale Ferrier to 22 years in prison, the BBC reports.

She will be deported from the US after serving her sentence and will face a lifetime of surveillance if she ever returns.

Judge Frederick told Ferrier that his actions were pernicious and harmful to society.

Ferrier, a dual citizen of France and Canada, told the court he was sorry his plan had failed.

She also said that she sees herself as an activist and not a terrorist.

According to the BBC report, the FBI found his fingerprints on a letter addressed to Trump. The letter urged him to drop out of the presidential race.

Ferrier acknowledged sending similar letters to eight Texas law enforcement officers.

According to the US Department of Justice, in 2019, he was detained in the state for nearly 10 weeks for illegally carrying a weapon and driving without a valid license, and he blamed those officers for that detention.

Ferrier was arrested in September 2020 while crossing the border in Buffalo, New York. She was carrying a gun, knife and ammunition.

He later admitted that he had made the poison at his Quebec home from ricin—a waste material left over from the processing of castor beans—and placed it in an envelope with the letter.

She agreed to the sentence after pleading guilty to biological weapons charges in January, the BBC reported.

In 2014, a Mississippi man was sentenced to 25 years in prison after sending ricin-laced letters to then-President Barack Obama and other officials.