Canadian woman who sent laced letter to Donald Trump sentenced to 21 years in prison

A 56-year-old woman has been sentenced to 21 years in prison after sending Donald Trump a letter laced with the deadly poison ricin.

The US Department of Justice released a statement confirming that Canadian and French dual citizen Pascale Ferrier had been sentenced to 262 months in jail, adding up to more than 21 years, and once she is out she will lead a 'lifetime of supervised release'.

In September 2020 she sent 'threatening letters' to the then US president and a number of Texas law enforcement officials.

The letters had contained homemade ricin, a deadly poison.

Ferrier admitted in court that she had made the ricin at her home in Quebec the same month she sent the letters, putting the poison in the envelopes along with the letters.

Hidalgo County Sheriff's Office

On 25 January, 2023 the woman pleaded guilty to sending the poison-laced letters and her plea sentencing was accepted in court, which has led to her 21 year prison sentence.

In 2019 she had been detained in Texas for around 10 weeks and believed that the law enforcement officials she sent letters to had been connected with that.

In September 2020 Ferrier had tweeted that she wished someone would 'please shoot Trump in the face' while her letter to him told him to give up contesting the 2020 US presidential election.

The letters were all mailed from Canada to the US and on 20 September, 2020 she drove from her home in Quebec to the Peace Bridge border crossing in the state of New York where officials found her in possession of a loaded firearm, hundreds of rounds of ammunition and other weapons.

Ferrier was arrested then and has remained in custody ever since.

Julie Bennett/Getty Images

As far as Trump is concerned the sentencing of a woman who sent him a letter laced with poison is the least of his worries.

He's facing multiple indictments and serious jail time of his own over a plethora of accusations including allegations of mishandling classified documents and claims that he tried to overturn his defeat to Joe Biden in the 2020 election.

Despite the array of charges and indictments against him Trump is still the frontrunner to be the Republican presidential nominee with his rivals for the role far behind in the race.

That would set the stage for a potential re-run of the 2020 election which he lost to Biden following historic levels of voter turnout.

Depending on how his trials go the US could even be in the peculiar position of having a president voted into office while jailed for attempting to overturn the results of an election.