‘Village’ willing to aid autistic suspect
Angry letter writer allowed to go home
Daniel Frisiello spent hours every day researching and writing letters to celebrities and elected officials, collecting their responses and autographs in binders at the Beverly home where he lives with his parents.
When he didn’t get a response, prosecutors say the serial-letter writer became frustrated — and fired off threatening letters last month stuffed with white powder to Donald Trump Jr., U.S. Sen. Deborah Stabenow, interim U.S. Attorney Nicola T. Hanna, Republican congressional candidate Antonio Sabato Jr., and Stanford law professor Michele Dauber.
Frisiello, a 24-year-old autistic man, is back home today following a weeklong stint behind bars after U.S. District Court Chief Magistrate Judge David H. Hennessy released him while he awaits trial.
About 50 of Frisiello’s family members and friends crowded into a federal courtroom in Worcester yesterday for his detention hearing.
“There is a village ready and willing to make sure Mr. Frisiello doesn’t harm himself or anyone else,” said his attorney, William Fick.
There were gasps and tears as the judge denied the prosecution’s request to keep him locked up.
“He is fortunate to have so much support,” the judge said.
Frisiello confessed to sending the letters, testified Michael Connelly, a postal inspector assigned to the FBI’s terrorist task force. Frisiello targeted people whose political views he disagreed with, Connelly said, and was trying to scare them and spark a costly and timeconsuming hazmat incident.
Trump Jr.’s wife, Vanessa, went to the hospital and was prescribed a medication as a precaution after opening the powdered letter at her mother’s house. White powder also spilled onto a pregnant staffer working for Stabenow, Connelly said.
Frisiello had researched the deadly anthrax attacks of 2001, he said, adding it wasn’t the first time Frisiello sent menacing letters and white powder.
A pair of U.S. Marshals showed up at his door after he sent letters to a prosecutor and Judge George A. O’Toole Jr., who was overseeing the trial of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Frisiello was against the death penalty, Connelly said.
“You have to be real careful of who you let into your courtroom,” he wrote to O’Toole.
Frisiello sent a letter to the company that fired one of his parents.
“You’ll get yours soon (expletive). You (expletive) with my family you (expletive) with me,” it read.
Frisiello sent letters to other Trump relatives in 2016, Connelly said, warning them that Trump should drop out of the presidential race, including a previous letter to Trump Jr.
He told state police in a letter to stop the “witch hunt” of Nathan Carman, who was on a boat with his mother when she vanished in 2016. Carman also reportedly has Asperger’s. “You’ll join Linda Carman at the bottom of the ocean with a bullet,” Frisiello wrote. “An autistic person can’t control his actions.”
Frisiello must wear a GPS tracking device and was ordered not to receive or send mail — and to stay off the internet. His mother told the judge her son likes movies and model trains.
Let’s hope his attention turns to that.