Texas actress gets 18 years for mailing ricin to Obama
A minor actress from Texas was sentenced Wednesday to 18 years in prison for sending ricin-tainted letters to President Obama, former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg and the head of his gun-control group.
Shannon Guess Richardson, 36, was also ordered to pay $367,000 restitution as part of a plea bargain for pleading guilty in December to one count of developing, producing, possessing and transferring a biological agent for use as a weapon. She bought the materials — castor bean seeds and lye — online.
The FBI arrested her in June 2013 after she was indicted by a federal grand jury. She gave birth the next month while in jail.
Richardson mailed three letters in May 2013 from her home in New Boston, near Texarkana, and then drove to a Shreveport, La., police station to implicate her estranged husband, who had filed for divorce. She told the FBI she did not think the letters would be opened because of security measures.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/07/16/texas-ricin-actress-sentenced/12744681/
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