MADRID, 17 Ago. (EUROPA PRESS) –
A Canadian woman who sent a ricin-laced letter to former US President Donald Trump pleaded guilty Friday to violating biological weapons laws and will be sentenced to 22 years in prison.
US District Judge Dabney Friedrich has signed a 262-month prison sentence against Pascale Ferrier after she accepted a plea deal. “My only regret is that it didn’t work and that I couldn’t stop Trump,” the defendant declared in court, according to CNN.
Ferrier, a resident of the Canadian city of Laval, north of Montreal, was detained in Buffalo as she tried to cross the Canadian border through New York state with a gun, a knife and hundreds of bullets.
The presence of ricin, a highly toxic substance that is extracted from castor beans and can come in the form of dust, granules, mist or acid, was confirmed by two tests. If ingested it causes nausea, vomiting and internal bleeding in the stomach and intestines. These symptoms are followed by liver and kidney failure, and eventually death from collapse of the circulatory system.
The woman also sent six other letters containing “a powdered substance” to various officials at a Texas detention center, where she had been incarcerated for a year, after being arrested in March 2019 for illegal possession of weapons.
