OXFORD, Miss.— Calm, polite but shackled to the waist, a Mississippi man charged with sending a ricin-laced letter to President Obama was ordered held without bail yesterday in his first court appearance since being arrested by the FBI.
J. Everett Dutschke, 41, dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit, said only, “Yes” and “I do” to procedural questions before a federal judge declared him “a flight risk and a danger to the community.”
But the brief hearing offered little insight into the government’s case against Dutschke, a martial-arts instructor who has been in a wacky long-running feud with Paul Kevin Curtis, the Elvis impersonator first charged with sending the letters to Obama and two other officials.
“I know absolutely nothing,” his court-appointed lawyer, George Lucas, said, adding that he had been handed court documents just before the hearing. “I’ve had the [criminal] complaint only 15 minutes.”
The case has become increasingly bizarre since the first ricin-laced letters were found.
Dutschke, who claims to be a member of the high-IQ Mensa society, is a failed congressional candidate who also describes himself as “a philosopher trapped in the body of an insurance agent.” He is due back in court for a detention hearing Thursday.
The feds said he faces life in prison and is charged with “knowingly developing, producing, stockpiling, transferring, acquiring, retaining and possessing a biological agent, toxin and delivery system, for use as a weapon, to wit: ricin.”
Meanwhile, Curtis’ lawyer said Curtis wants the feds to pay for wrecking his home. The house is uninhabitable thanks to the government’s failed search to find evidence that he made or possessed the deadly poison, attorney Christi McCoy said.
She sent a letter to federal prosecutors saying the government should provide him temporary housing and pay to repair his home and possessions. Her letter says that his lock was broken, picture frames were ruined and artwork was torn.
With Post Wire Services