JACKSON — A Mississippi man imprisoned for mailing poison-laced letters to President Barack Obama and others was denied his request to change a court transcript.
U.S. District Judge Sharion Aycock denied a request by James Everett Dutschke to change what he said was an incorrect quote from a sentencing hearing he abruptly ended.
“Specifically, he claims that the transcript is incorrect in that it quotes him as stating that letters containing a toxic substance, ricin, were mailed to individuals ‘chosen by courtesy,’ when he actually stated that they were mailed to individuals ‘chosen by Curtis,’ the individual he purports is responsible for mailing the letters at issue in this case,” Aycock wrote in an Aug. 5 order denying the requested change.
Aycock said she’s not conceding the transcript is wrong. But she said even if it were, it wouldn’t matter because Dutschke affirmed in another hearing days later in May 2014 that he intended to plead guilty. He was sentenced in the latter hearing.
Prosecutors say Dutschke sent letters containing ricin in 2013 to Obama, Republican Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi and local judge Sadie Holland in what prosecutors said was an elaborate plot to frame a rival — an Elvis impersonator named Paul Kevin Curtis.
The letters addressed to Obama and Wicker were intercepted before delivery, but one was opened by Lee County Justice Court Judge Holland, the mother of a state representative Dutschke had challenged in 2007. Sadie Holland was unharmed.
Dutschke, now 45, is serving a 25-year sentence at a federal prison in Florence, Colorado.
Curtis was initially arrested by federal authorities but was abruptly released after officials found no evidence of ricin in his home in Corinth, Mississippi.
Dutschke, a former martial arts instructor, accused Curtis of mailing the poisoned letters.
But in a statement during the sentencing hearing he ended, Dutschke said federal prosecutors lied when they said he made the poison and they had found his DNA on a dust mask. Dutschke said he was guilty only of using castor beans to make a fertilizer that couldn’t hurt anyone.
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