US prosecutors dropped charges on Tuesday against a Mississippi man accused of sending ricin-laced letters to US President Barack Obama, a US senator and a state judge, according to court documents.
The surprise decision came hours after Paul Kevin Curtis was released from a Mississippi jail on bond.
Prosecutors said the “ongoing investigation has revealed new information,” but provided no additional details, according to the court order dismissing the charges.
Curtis told reporters he respected Obama.
“I would never do anything to pose a threat to him or any other US official,” he said. “I love this country.”
He said he had no idea what ricin was.
“I thought they said ‘rice,’ I told them I don’t eat rice,” he said.
Curtis, who is 45 and known in Mississippi as an Elvis impersonator, had been released from jail on bond earlier on Tuesday after a judge indefinitely postponed a court hearing on his detention. The case was later dismissed “without prejudice,” meaning the charges could be potentially reinstated if warranted.
Later on Tuesday, Federal law enforcement officials searched the house of a second Mississippi man, Everett Dutschke, Lee County Sheriff Jim Johnson told reporters.
It was not clear if the search was related to the ricin case.
A representative for the US Attorney’s Office in Oxford, Mississippi, did not return calls for comment.
Dutschke is “cooperating fully” with the FBI, his attorney Lori Nail Basham told the Northeastern Mississippi Daily Journal. Dutschke has not been charged in the ricin case, she said.
Basham said Dutschke and Curtis were acquaintances and believed the two men had known each other for several years.
In 2007, Dutschke ran unsuccessfully as a Republican candidate against Stephen Holland, an incumbent Democratic state representative from the Tupelo area. Holland’s mother, Sadie, is the judge to whom one of the ricin-tainted letters was mailed this month.
During the state campaign Dutschke produced a video titled: The Aliens are Coming, attacking his opponent for being soft on immigration, which stated that Holland was a “friend” of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers.
Christi McCoy, Curtis’ attorney, told CNN she believed her client had been framed.
“I do believe that someone who was familiar, and is familiar, with Kevin just simply took his personal information and did this to him,” McCoy told CNN. “It is absolutely horrific that someone would do this.”
Curtis was arrested on Wednesday last week at his home in Corinth, Mississippi. He was charged with mailing letters to Obama, Republican Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi and Lee County Justice Court Judge Sadie Holland containing a substance that preliminarily tested positive for ricin, a highly lethal poison made from castor beans.
The letters were intercepted by authorities before they reached their destinations.
Over the weekend, investigators searched Curtis’ home, his vehicle and his ex-wife’s home, but failed to find any incriminating evidence, McCoy told the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal.
In a statement last week, Curtis’ family said they had not been shown any evidence of the charges against him. They said he suffers from a long history of mental illness.
Typewritten on yellow paper, the three letters contained the same eight-line message, according to an affidavit from the FBI and the US Secret Service filed in court.
“Maybe I have your attention now ... Even if that means someone must die,” the letters read in part, according to the affidavit.
The letters ended: “I am KC and I approve this message.”
The initials “K.C.” led law enforcement officials to ask Wicker’s staff if they were aware of any constituents with those initials, and the focus of the investigation then turned to Curtis, the affidavit said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese