Ottawa 
RCMP officers prepare to enter an apartment complex in connection with the mailing of ricin to President Trump, Monday, September 21, 2020 in St-Hubert, Que.,.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz
A Quebec woman suspected of mailing envelopes containing the poison ricin to the White House and law enforcement officials in Texas is facing a charge of threats against the president of the United States.
Pascale Ferrier is expected to appear in federal court in Buffalo, N.Y., on Tuesday afternoon.
Officials in the United States say the letter sent to Washington, D.C., was intercepted on Sept. 18 before it reached the White House.
In a sworn affidavit to obtain the arrest warrant, an FBI investigator wrote the envelope contained a powdery white substance with a letter to President Donald Trump, calling him “The Ugly Tyrant Clown.”
The letter accused him of ruining the United States and called on him to “give up” his re-election bid.
“I made a ‘Special Gift’ for you to make a decision,” the letter read, referring to the powder. “If it doesn’t work, I’ll find a better recipe for another poison or I might use my gun when I’ll be able to come. Enjoy!” It was signed FREE REBEL SPIRIT.
The FBI says six additional letters were sent to Texas containing language and substances similar to what was in the envelope intended for Trump. They were mailed to authorities and facilities connected to her detention in Texas in 2019.
Authorities also discovered a tweet sent on Sept. 9 with the hashtag #killtrump allegedly linked to Ferrier’s Twitter account.
Ferrier, 53, was arrested Sunday while attempting to enter the United States at the Peace Bridge border crossing in Buffalo. The FBI alleges Ferrier identified herself to Customs and Border Protection officials as being wanted in connection with the ricin letters and was found to have a loaded handgun and a knife on her.
On Monday, the RCMP searched an apartment tied to the suspect in a Montreal suburb. The RCMP’s Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, Explosives team led the operation. The Mounties said they completed their search of the apartment late Monday but could not provide details about what was seized.
A software developer by trade and a native of France, Ferrier became a Canadian citizen in February 2015 according to her Facebook page.
She spent time in jail in Mission, Texas, in March 2019 on one count of tampering with government records and two counts of unlawful possession of a weapon.
Police in Mission arrested Ferrier after finding her in park after hours in her RV. According to her court-appointed lawyer, Alberto Osorio, she initially refused to identify herself.
Police then conducted a search and found a fake Texas driver’s license and two guns, according to police and the prosecutor.
District attorney Ricardo Rodriguez Jr. said his office didn’t formally charge her with unlawfully carrying a weapon because it didn’t think it would be possible to secure a conviction.
The charge of tampering with government records was dismissed in May 2019, because it was a relatively minor first offence, because Ferrier had spent more than 20 days in jail and because she was facing deportation from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Rodriguez said.
He said there was no sign Ferrier might pose a danger. She co-operated with police when she was arrested and there was nothing suspicious about the fact that she had guns, he said, adding that the guns were not pointed at police during the arrest.
“I wish we had a crystal ball to be able to know what’s going to happen,” he said.
On Monday, the sheriff’s office in Hidalgo County, in southern Texas, confirmed that letters had been mailed to its offices.
“I can confirm that envelopes, containing the deadly toxin ricin, was mailed to me and three of my detention staff,” Sheriff Eddie Guerra tweeted.
A letter, believed to contain ricin, was also received at Mission Police headquarters last week, said Investigator Art Flores, the department’s spokesman. Mission police had been warned about the letter and it was turned over to the FBI before it was opened, he said.
Osorio said he was surprised to hear Ferrier’s name mentioned in connection with the mailing of poison.
“This news is relatively shocking to me,” he said. “Ms. Ferrier was always very, very nice, very pleasant, very respectful to me and everybody around us.”
According to Facebook posts, Ferrier left for Texas in October 2018 after securing an RV, with plans to spend several months living in the state. In June 2019, she wrote she was driving back to Canada, crossing the border in Manitoba with no issues.
It’s common for ICE to allow people who are in the U.S. illegally to “self-deport” and leave the country by a certain day, said Osorio, though he said he doesn’t know if that was the case with Ferrier.
Public records show Ferrier, who lived in Laval, Que., at the time, filed for bankruptcy in 2018. She had $248,642 in liabilities and $222,441 in assets, according to self-declared amounts.
After returning from the U.S. in 2019, she worked for several months at a small grocery store south of Montreal. Luc Gagnon, the owner of the store, said she never discussed politics or her time in the U.S.
“She was a devoted employee, a hard worker,” Gagnon said Tuesday.
According to her resume, Ferrier was currently working as a software configuration manager through a placement agency.
While Ferrier had stopped working at the store by last February, Gagnon said he would see her two to three times a week at his shop in a working class neighbourhood of Longueuil.
Gagnon said he last saw Ferrier on Saturday and she was her usual talkative self. “Everything seemed normal, like usual,” Gagnon said. “On Saturday she said she was going to run errands, her daily routine.”
He said he was “shocked and surprised” to learn she’d been arrested.
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— With files from The Associated Press.
This story was produced with the financial assistance of the Facebook and Canadian Press News Fellowship.
Jacob Serebrin and Sidhartha Banerjee, The Canadian Press
© The Canadian Press
