Canadian Woman Sentenced to 22 Years in Prison For Sending Letter to Trump That Contained Ricin

A woman is behind bars for trying to poison Donald Trump. Pascale Ferrier, 55, was sentenced to 22 years in prison on Thursday for the 2020 incident.

Ferrier pleaded guilty in January. She is accused of making ricin, a toxin made from waste material left over from castor beans, in her home and then mailing it with threatening letters to Trump and eight Texas law enforcement officials, The Hill reported.

She faced a charge of prohibitions with respect to biological weapons in Washington, D.C., and eight counts of the same charge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. She agreed to have the Texas case transferred to Washington for plea and sentencing, according to a Justice Department release.

In the letter to Trump, Ferrier urged the him to “[g]ive up and remove [his] application for this election.” After mailing the letters, she drove from Canada to a border crossing bridge in Buffalo, N.Y., where border patrol agents arrested her after discovering she had a loaded firearm, hundreds of rounds of ammunition and other weapons in her possession.

U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Matthew Graves said “there is no place for political violence in our country, and no excuse for threatening public officials or endangering our public servants” after she pleaded guilty in January.

Ferrier’s attorneys agreed with the Justice Department that a sentence of 262 months in prison, just short of 22 years, is appropriate, according to sentencing memos filed in May. The sentence was agreed upon in January as part of her plea deal, and then formalized by a judge Thursday.