KING OF RICIN ROLLED
Elvis impersonator in poison bust Sent tainted letter to Bam: feds
NOW HE’S really dancin’ to the jailhouse rock.
A Mississippi man arrested Wednesday in a scheme to kill President Obama with a poisoned letter is an Elvis impersonator and caring father of four, his stunned father told the Daily News.
But suspect Paul Kevin Curtis, 45, has been in jail before on simple assault and harassment charges, Mississippi authorities told the Clarion-Ledger newspaper, and Internet posts he purportedly wrote are rife with conspiracy theories about the Mafia and organ harvesting.
Letters the feds say Curtis sent to Obama and a state lawmaker contained deadly ricin, according to a preliminary test of the granular substance — a revelatio tion that had Cu Curtis’ father all sh shook up.
The suspect pe performs songs by the king of ro rock ’n’ roll on cr cruise ships and ga gambling boats, h his dad said.
“You can’t i imagine what a shock it is,” a thunderstruck J Jack Curtis Sr. said in a telephone teleph interview Wednesday night.
“I don’t ever believe he would do that. How would he even be able to get a hold of ricin?”
Curtis said his son was nabbed while pulling out of his Corinth, Miss., driveway, on his way to pick up his children and take them to an evening church service.
“It’s a sad state of affairs,” the dad said.
“I literally detest Obama ... . But I can’t think of any rhyme or r reason why Kevin would do anything like that.
Curtis said his son, who goes by his middle name Kevin, at one point owned an office cleaning business but quit years ago to focus on his Elvis act.
“He’s really good at what he does,” the father said, noting that his son once finished seventh in an Elvis impersonation competition in Memphis. “I’m shocked as all get-out.”
The potentially deadly letter mailed to the White House was one of three that were intercepted Wednesday, the same day three suspicious packages led to a partial lockdown of a Senate building. Police lifted the security restrictions about 1 p.m., after the parcels proved to be harmless.
The apparent attempt on the President’s life and numerous other suspicious packages that turned up in the U.S. on Wednesday heightened tensions created by Monday’s Boston Marathon bombings. But the mailings were not believed to be related to the terror attack in Boston.
The ricin letters, postmarked April 8 in Memphis, were caught at offsite screening facilities before they reached the White House, the district office of Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and the office of a Mississippi judicial official.
A screed posted to the website Ripoff Report and signed by a Kevin Curtis of Booneville, Miss., a town near Corinth, hinted at why the suspect might have harbored anger toward Wicker.
The 2007 rant describes hidden body parts and organs at the North Mississippi Medical Center in Tupelo and mentions letters sent to, and not returned by, Roger Wicker, whom the writer refers to as a state representative.
It ends with the signoff, “This is Kevin Curtis and I approve this report.” The line echoes one that reportedly ended the letters mailed to Wicker and Obama this week: “I am KC, and I approve this message.”
Wicker is a conservative with an A-plus rating from the National Rifle Association but was one of 16 Republicans who last week voted to begin a Senate debate on a gun-control bill.
Curtis said it was strange to see his son’s name on national TV Wednesday night.
“I just can’t believe he would be weak enough to make any kind of threat, for God’s sake,” the agonized dad said. “I guess time will tell if he did.”