By Canadian Press

U.S. judge orders Canadian woman accused of threatening Trump to remain in custody

Sep 28, 2020 | 1:11 PM

A Quebec woman accused of sending a ricin-laced threat to President Donald Trump was equipped to cause bodily harm when she was arrested, a U.S. judge said Monday as he ordered Pascale Ferrier to remain behind bars. 

Ferrier, 53, had at least one semi-automatic handgun and 294 rounds of ammunition with her when she was arrested last weekend while trying to cross the Canada-U. S. border, the court heard. 

Timothy Lynch of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Buffalo, N.Y., described Ferrier as being “loaded for bear” when she was stopped Sept. 20 at the Peace Bridge border crossing.  

That, combined with the pointed threats contained in the letter Ferrier allegedly sent Trump, makes her a clear danger to the public, said District Court Judge Kenneth Schroeder Jr.

Schroeder Jr. ordered Ferrier to be transferred to a facility in the Washington area, where a grand jury has already returned an indictment on a charge of threatening the president of the United States. 

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Lynch did acknowledge that Ferrier identified herself to U.S. border protection officers as the person “wanted by the FBI for the ricin envelope,” a detail that didn’t escape the notice of her lawyer, Fonda Kubiak. 

Surely if Ferrier posed a risk of flight, she wouldn’t have presented herself to the authorities in the way she did, Kubiak argued.

“People who are looking to abscond or to flee, they certainly don’t engage in that kind of behaviour,” said Kubiak, who also entered a plea of not guilty on behalf of her client. 

“If she had ill will and intentions, she certainly would not have gone to the border to say, ‘Here I am.'”

Lynch said Ferrier was also in possession of a “spring knife,” a stun gun and a baton when she was arrested, and that lab tests in Canada found traces of ricin in a mortar and pestle recovered from her apartment in Montreal.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 28, 2020. 

James McCarten, The Canadian Press