Mississippi Man Arrested In Connection With Poisoned Letters

[News_Editor]

TUPELO, MISSISSIPPI (BNO NEWS) -- A Mississippi man was arrested and charged Saturday in connection with poisoned letters which were sent to U.S. President Barack Obama and two other people, federal officials and prosecutors said. Another Mississippi resident had earlier been arrested but was later cleared.

James Everett Dutschke, 41, was arrested at his residence in Tupelo, a city in Lee County, at approximately 12:50 a.m. local time on Saturday by Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He was taken into custody without incident, according to FBI spokeswoman Deborah Madden.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Mississippi said Dutschke was arrested on a criminal complaint that charges him with knowingly developing, producing, stockpiling, transferring, acquiring, retaining and possessing a biological agent, toxin and delivery system, for use as a weapon, namely ricin, and with attempting, threatening and conspiring to do the same.

"Dutschke is expected to appear in the United States District Court in Oxford, Mississippi, on Monday, April 29, 2013, before U. S. Magistrate Judge S. Allan Alexander," the office said in a brief statement. It added that Dutschke, if convicted, faces maximum possible penalties of life imprisonment, a $250,000 fine and 5 years of supervised release.

The poisoned letters were sent earlier this month and addressed to Obama, Republican U.S. Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, and Lee County judge Sadie Holland, but all were detected before reaching their intended targets. They came just days after a double bomb attack at the Boston Marathon, briefly raising fears that the letters were part of a wider terror plot.

Another Mississippi resident, 45-year-old Elvis impersonator Paul Kevin Curtis, was arrested in connection with the case on April 18. But he maintained his innocence and insisted that he knew nothing about the poisoned letters, and the charges against him were eventually dropped as authorities began to focus on Dutschke.
(Copyright 2013 by BNO News B.V. All rights reserved. Info: [email protected].)

[Publicus]

President Obama has had 300% more death threats than any other single president.

The maximum sentence in this instance is life, and whoever is guilty should get life imprisonment, period.

[Sing_Sling]

^ Agreed

[Potosi]

Dutschke is a famous name in Germany, Rudi Dutschke was the leader of the student movement that changed the political landscape, started the sex revolution, etc. I wonder if there's a relation.

[Sing_Sling]

Dutschke is a famous name in Germany, Rudi Dutschke was the leader of the student movement that changed the political landscape, started the sex revolution, etc. I wonder if there's a relation.

It would be tenuous at best, I should think . . . and he was much more than just a student leader . . . he was - by all accounts - a terrorist in his own right, the best example being transporting dynamite in his baby's pram to be used in a bombing.

Edited April 28, 2013 by Sing_Sling

[Publicus]

Dutschke is a famous name in Germany, Rudi Dutschke was the leader of the student movement that changed the political landscape, started the sex revolution, etc. I wonder if there's a relation.

Rudy the Red, as he continues to be known, even after his death (in 1979) consequent to a gunshot wound inflicted 45 years ago this month. An intolerant and anti-democratic young man.

Barack Obama is transformative, a leader. Rudy the Red was a militant agitator. As a fellow "68er," I clearly remember him from the other side of the pond, where I was active in the U.S. civil rights movement, among other causes of the time.

Rudy the Red was not my kind of movement guy.