Anthrax con adds 15 years for prisoner

A state prison inmate responsible for an anthrax hoax against then-Gov. Mike Huckabee seven years ago was sent to prison again on Friday for a similar hoax targeting federal court officials in Little Rock.

Chief U.S. District Judge Brian S. Miller sentenced 36-year-old Leroy Shawn Selsor to 15 years in prison on Friday after Selsor pleaded guilty to mailing threatening communications and conveying false information, two counts of a five-count indictment.

Selsor will serve three years on supervised release once he completes his federal sentence, which does not allow parole. Selsor has been serving a 20-year state sentence for robbery and first-degree battery in Pulaski County since June 2011. He won’t begin serving his 15-year sentence until he completes his state term, court records show.

“Threats of violence, like the ones made by Leroy Selsor, are something this office takes very seriously, especially in light of recent events,” U.S. Attorney Conner Eldridge said in a news release. “This office will continue to protect an individual’s right to be free from fear, and those who attempt to evoke terror in our communities will be brought to justice.”

The indictment states that three days apart in November 2011, Selsor mailed threatening letters to the Richard Sheppard Arnold U.S. Courthouse on West Capitol Street.

The first one was addressed to a federal judge and a prosecutor and threatened to carbomb them. The second letter to the judge, prosecutor and a probation officer contained a white powder and claimed to be tainted with a “virus,” according to the indictment. None of the officials were identified.

Selsor was indicted in August 2012 and pleaded guilty in April in an agreement with prosecutors to drop the remaining three counts of the indictment.

Those three counts include allegations that two months later, in January 2012, he mailed a letter containing white powder claiming to be tainted with anthrax to the Social Security office next door to the courthouse.

In June 2007, Selsor was sentenced to three years in federal prison after pleading guilty to making an anthrax hoax for mailing a letter containing white powder purporting to be anthrax to Huckabee’s office.

The October 2006 letter declared, “This is anthrax, and it’s going to kill you,” and forced the evacuation of a business office of the governor.

The letter was an attempt by Selsor to frame another inmate he was feuding with and turned out to contain baby powder and Selsor’s fingerprints.

Selsor was five months away from completing an eight-year Washington County forgery sentence when he sent the letter, which had the other inmate’s name and mailing address. He was released from federal prison in February 2010. Three months later, Selsor’s probation officer movedto revoke his sentence after he failed a drug test, didn’t return some phone calls and missed a meeting with the officer, court records show.

Authorities also received a tip that his girlfriend was a convicted felon - with whom he was not supposed to be associating - and the couple was making and injecting drugs and considering absconding supervision, according to court filings. He was subsequently ordered to undergo in-patient drug treatment, but the requirement was rescinded within 10 days for unspecified medical reasons.

Three weeks later, in July 2010, he was arrested and convicted in North Little Rock on a misdemeanor prescription medication charge.

In November 2010, he was arrested at his Standridge Road home in North Little Rock when Pulaski County sheriff’s deputies, arriving to arrest him in the stabbing of a man two weeks earlier, found Selsor and another man beating Aaron Keating with brass knuckles in a robbery. In the stabbing case, Selsor had twice stabbed a man in a wheelchair, court records show. The man, Russell Vice, had been a guest at Selsor’s home during a party, according to court records.

Selsor was sentenced to 20 years in prison in a plea deal. About two months later, in August 2011, U.S. District Judge James Moody sentenced Selsor to serve two years in federal prison - after completing his state term - for violating his supervision conditions, court filings show.

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 16 on 09/01/2013

Upcoming Events