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Ricin suspect says he made the lethal powder in 1998

An unemployed graphic designer who pleaded guilty to possessing toxic ricin said on Friday he distilled the lethal powder in 1998 from the beans of a backyard castor plant, and carried it with him for a decade as he moved from San Diego to Reno, Las Vegas and near Salt Lake City.

“I made it,” Roger Bergendorff, 57, said during an exclusive interview from a Las Vegas-area jail, where he is being held pending sentencing.

Police and prosecutors have cast Bergendorff as a troubled man who acted alone, and they have said the case was not linked to terrorism.

Bergendorff, who pleaded guilty on Monday to federal possession of a biological toxin and weapons charges, denied any criminal intent and said he never intentionally or accidentally released any of the lethal powder.

“Absolutely not. Zero chance. I had it triple-sealed,” Bergendorff said in a series of timed telephone calls he made from the jail.

Bergendorff also said he was sure ricin did not cause the breathing problems that prompted him to call an ambulance Feb. 14 to his motel room a few blocks off the Las Vegas Strip.

“It was in a container in my safe and it hadn’t been touched.

“There was no reason to touch it,” he said.

Authorities suspected Bergendorff was exposed to ricin, but said they could not be sure because the poison breaks down in the body within days. Bergendorff was hospitalized for two weeks before the ricin was discovered in his room.

Bergendorff blamed his illness on stress following the death of his older brother. He said he fell unconscious before arriving at a hospital, and didn’t remember anything else until he awoke three weeks later from what he described as a coma.
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