A federal grand jury has indicted the east Texas actress accused of mailing threatening, ricin-laced letters to President Barack Obama, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and gun-control advocate Mark Glaze.
Shannon Guess Richardson, 35, was charged in the five-page indictment with one count of mailing athreatening letter to the president and two counts of mailing a threatening communication, John M. Bales, the U.S. attorney for the EasternDistrict of Texas, said Friday.
The indictment, handed up in secret Thursday by the grand jury convened in theEastern District in Texas, refers to the three letters as containing ricin. But Richardson was not charged with any crimes related to the possession or manufacture of the toxin.
The indictment also does not refer to accusations by federal authorities that Richardson attempted to frame her husband as the sender of the letters by planting the toxin at their home in New Boston,Texas. Her husband, who has not been charged in the case, has since filed for divorce.
Bales spokesman Davilyn Walston said she couldn’t say whether any additional charges related to the toxin are forthcoming in Richardson’s case.
“We always leave open the option of a superseding indictment and charging more as it goes along. At this point, we’ve indicted and that’s what we’ve indicted for,” she said.
Federal prosecutors must coordinate with the Department of Justice in Washington when seeking an indictment on ricin-related charges, but Walston couldn’t say whether that process is under way in Richardson’s case.
“That’s getting into our investigation, and we do not comment on ongoing investigations,” she said.
Reached by phone Friday, Richardson’s attorney, Tonda Curry, said federal prosecutors have told her informally that they plan to seek Justice Department approval to pursue charges related to ricin.
But Curry said she is hopeful that the Justice Department’s counterterrorism specialists, who are consulted in cases that involve ricin perdepartment policy, wouldn’t allow the evidence to be brought before a grand jury “since there was no intent here to harm the president or anyone else.”
“They have very solid evidence right now that she is the individual who placed the envelopes in the mail. It’s still up in the air how much she knew about the contents, and we are still contesting that,” Curry said.
Richardson is accused of mailing the three letters to Obama, Bloomberg and Glaze, the director of Mayors AgainstIllegal Guns, a gun-control advocacy group of which Bloomberg is co-chairman.
The letters expressed anger at Bloomberg and the president and promised to shoot anyone seeking to take guns from the writer’s home, according to the indictment.
The letters also contained substances that later tested positive for ricin, federal agents say. Ricin is a toxin derived from castor beans that can be fatal if inhaled, ingested or otherwise introduced into a person’s body. The toxin has no known antidote.
The letters made national news in late May while investigators were tracing them back to a mailing facility in Shreveport. From there, federal agents traced the letters back to east Texas, near New Boston, a town about 25 miles west of Texarkana on Interstate 30.
After the letters’ existence was made public, Richardson came forward May 30, telling federal agents that she suspected her husband had sent the letters.
Federal agents later interviewed her husband, Nathaniel Richardson, who denied sending the letters. He told investigators that he believed his wife had sent them and was setting him up because she wanted to end their marriage.
Investigators later searched the couple’s home and found castor beans, syringes and other ingredients used in making ricin. Samples of substances taken from the home later tested positive for ricin, federal agents say.
Federal authorities also say they found computer files containing the text of the letters and mailing addresses for the three intended recipients. The files were printed while Nathaniel Richardson was at work, federal agents say.
After investigators confronted Shannon Richardson with the files and other evidence, federal agents say she admitted to receiving ingredients used to make ricin in the mail. She also admitted to printing the mailing labels for the three letters and sending the letters knowing that they contained ricin, according to an affidavit supporting her arrest June 7.
Richardson, investigators noted, still maintained she had mailed the letters at her husband’s direction.
On Friday, Curry said Richardson may have mailed the letters out of fear but she declined to name anyone who may have coerced her client to mail the letters.
The formal charges announced Friday come a week after Richardson was ordered by a federal judge to undergo a mental evaluation. The evaluation came at Curry’s request because of her concern about her client’s ability to assist in her defense.
Richardson was suffering from panic attacks, severe anxiety and exhibiting other concerning signs of mental instability, Curry said.
Since then, Curry said her client, who is pregnant, has been comforted somewhat because four of her children have been reunited and are living with their biological father in Georgia. The children had been separated while in the custody of Texas childprotective services after Richardson’s arrest, Curry said.
Richardson, mother of a fifth child who is 19 and lives independently, still remains in need of mental health care, Curry said.
“It’s just very, very stressful, causing a lot of anxiety, which is normal for a person who’s never been locked up before. But when you’re pregnant and facing the possibility of having your baby while locked up, I think that adds to your anxiety,” she said.
On Friday, Curry said she hadn’t been notified that her client had been moved to a federal medical facility to undergo the evaluation but Richardson was no longer listed as an inmate in the Titus County, Texas, jail where she had been held.
Before her arrest, Richardson was best known for small roles in the television shows The Vampire Diaries and The Walking Dead, a show in which she played a zombie, according to her resume posted on the Internet movie and television database, IMBd. Richardson, who at times uses the names Shannon Rogers and Shannon Guess, also played a student in the film, The Blind Side.
If convicted, she faces up to five years in prison on each charge listed in the in-dictment.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 06/29/2013