Utah man accused of sending scary letters to Trump to others

A Navy veteran was charged on Friday with federal indictment charges in connection with a series of letters to the Pentagon, President Donald Trump and other senior government officials who had initially been sentenced. positive castor test.

William Clyde Allen III, 39, of Logan, Utah, is charged with five counts, including threatening to use a biological toxin, according to a complaint filed in the United States. federal government Friday.

The letters to Trump and Defense Secretary James Mattis, the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral John Richardson and FBI Director Christopher Wray were all intercepted at Mail sorting this week and no injuries were reported.

The letters contained pieces of crushed castor seeds, from which ricin poison was derived, officials said. Castor powder was not in its dangerous form, but they were first tested positive for ricin, which can be deadly.

Allen told a FBI special agent during his interview Wednesday after his arrest that he had sent the letters to deliver a message, but he did not specify what this message consisted of, according to the complaint filed by the federal government.

The letters contained small pieces of what appeared to be castor seeds and a note with the message "Jack and missile bean stem powder", according to the complaint filed by the federal government.

Allen was sentenced to remain in detention pending prosecution, according to NBC affiliate KSL of Salt Lake City.

In tears, he declared in court that he was looking forward to attending the general conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints this weekend and that he was to take caring for his disabled wife, KSL reported.

"These charges are serious – they do not make people laugh," said Utah's US Attorney, John Huber, according to the station. A federal grand jury will review the allegations and determine whether an official indictment should be filed.

Allen did not plead on Friday. The federal public defender appointed to represent Allen, Lynn Donaldson, said his office's policy was not to comment on the cases pending trial and that his comments would be reserved for public hearings.

Allen also reportedly told the FBI that he had sent letters to US Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, Russian President Vladimir Putin and the US Army Secretary. air, whose name he did not remember. It was not clear whether these letters had been sent.

Allen enlisted in the US Navy in October 1998 and retired in 2002, the navy said. According to the Navy, he was registered as an apprentice firefighter specializing in damage control.

According to the complaint filed by the federal government, he had the habit of threatening: in 2015, he had sent an email to the CIA, threatening to kill then President Barack Obama, if the agency kept stopping violate his constitutional rights; and in February 2017, he sent a bomb threat to Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, an FBI special agent said in the complaint.

According to the complaint filed by the federal government, Allen reportedly told the FBI that he had done research on the internet on castor and bought a hundred castor seeds on eBay because he wanted to dispose of it in case the Third War world would explode and thought that they could be used to defend the nation.

Research on his eBay account revealed two purchases of castor beans from the website on Dec. 3, according to the complaint.