Pascale Cecile Veronique Ferrier, 55, a dual citizen of Canada and France, was sentenced Thursday to 21 years and ten months in prison for sending threatening letters containing homemade ricin (a toxin), in September 2020, to then-President Donald J. Trump at the White House,
He also sent ricin letters eight Texas State law enforcement officials.
Ferrier pleaded guilty on Jan. 25 to prohibitions for biological weapons in two separate criminal cases.
According to court documents, Ferrier admitted that she made ricin at her residence in Quebec, Canada, in September 2020.
Ricin is a deadly poison made from castor beans.
Ferrier placed the ricin toxin in envelopes containing letters she wrote to then-President Trump at the White House and to eight Texas State law enforcement officials.
Ferrier had been detained in the State of Texas for approximately 10 weeks in the spring of 2019, and she believed that the law enforcement officials were connected to her period of detention.
In early September 2020, Ferrier used the Twitter social media service to propose that someone should “please shoot [T]rump in the face.”
The letters in the envelopes contained threatening language, and the letter addressed to then-President Trump instructed him to “[g]ive up and remove [his] application for this election.”
Ferrier mailed each threatening ricin letter from Canada to the United States.
Ferrier then drove a car from Canada to the Peace Bridge Border Crossing in Buffalo, New York, on Sept. 20, 2020, where border patrol officials found her possessing a loaded firearm, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, and other weapons and arrested her.
Ferrier has remained in custody.
The FBI Washington and San Antonio Field Offices investigated the case.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael J. Friedman for the District of Columbia; Assistant U.S. Attorneys Rob Jones, David Coronado and David Lindenmuth for the Southern District of Texas; and Trial Attorney David Smith of the National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section prosecuted the case.