Ricin suspect, 35, negotiates plea agreement
Court date hasn’t been set
A New Boston, Texas, woman accused of mailing poison-laced letters to President Barack Obama and others has negotiated a plea agreement with the government.
Shannon Guess Richardson’s case docket includes a one-line “notice of plea agreement” penned Thursday by Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank Coan. A following docket entry in Richardson’s case cancels a pretrial hearing previously set for Dec. 2 in Texarkana’s downtown federal building before U.S. District Judge Michael Schneider.
Plea agreement details are typically not public record until sentencing, though they are often verbally discussed at a defendant’s change-of-plea hearing. A date for Richardson to appear in court and formally
“Anyone wants to come to my house will get shot in the face. The right to bear arms is my constitutional God given right and I will exercise (sic) that right til the day I die.” — Ricin letters
change her plea to guilty has not been set.
Richardson, 35, has been in the custody of federal marshals since June 7. Later that month, a federal grand jury in the Texarkana division of the Eastern District of Texas handed down a three-count indictment charging her with making a threat against the president of the United States and two counts of mailing threatening communications.
Richardson, who was about four months pregnant at the time of her arrest, allegedly concocted the toxin using castor beans, bulk lye and syringes she ordered over the Internet in a house on Maple Street that she shared with her husband, Nathaniel Richardson, and four of her children. Shannon Richardson gave birth prematurely July 4 to a boy who is
See RICIN on Page 2A
now in Nathaniel Richardson’s legal custody. Nathaniel Richardson is not the father of Shannon Richardson’s five other children.
Three letters, one sent to Obama, another mailed to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and a third sent to Michael Glaze, head of a gun-control advocacy group, containing a pinkish, oily substance tested positively for ricin, according to an FBI criminal complaint used to create the following account.
All of the letters bore a May 20 Shreveport, La., postmark and were determined to have been mailed from either Texarkana or New Boston, Texas.
Shannon Richardson came to the attention of authorities after she drove to Shreveport and met with FBI agents there May 30. Shannon Richardson initially claimed she found a strange substance in her refrigerator and ricin searches on a home computer, which she attributed to her husband.
But a polygraph showed evidence of deception on Shannon Richardson’s part. When confronted by investigators with the polygraph results, Shannon Richardson’s story began to change.
The mother of six allegedly admitted to mailing the letters but maintained that her husband made her do it.
Nathaniel Richardson has not been charged with any crime, and court documents state officials believe Shannon Richardson acted alone. In state court documents related to the Richardsons’ divorce, Nathaniel Richardson accuses his former wife of putting ricin in a lunch he took to work.
The letters allegedly sent by Shannon Richardson were written as if from a man. The poisoned letter to Obama consisted of a note claiming the writer is a veteran. The note included complaints of proposed gun control legislation and a religious slur, and threatened that, “What’s in this letter is nothing compared to what I’ve got in store for you Mr. President.”
The letters to Bloomberg and Glaze were similar.
“Anyone wants to come to my house will get shot in the face,” the letters warned. “The right to bear arms is my constitutional God given right and I will exercise (sic) that right til the day I die.”
Earlier in the case, U.S. Magistrate Judge Caroline Craven ordered a mental evaluation of Shannon Richardson at the request of her courtappointed lawyer, Tonda Curry of Tyler, Texas. Richardson was found competent to stand trial, according to a report addressed at a pretrial hearing before Craven in August.
In September, Curry argued unsuccessfully before Craven for Richardson’s release while the case proceeds.
“Her intent was not to inflict violence but an ill-thoughtout way to resolve a domestic problem—if she committed any part of this offense,” Curry said at Richardson’s Sept. 11 detention hearing.
Coan argued against Richardson’s release, citing the violent nature of the offense and concern that Richardson might flee the court’s jurisdiction. Craven denied Richardson’s request for pretrial freedom.
Each of the offenses with which Richardson is charged is punishable by up to five years in federal prison, a fine up to $250,000 or both.