Ricin inquiry seeks link to trucking law

WASHINGTON - Investigators are trying to determine if a mysterious "Fallen Angel" who sent two threatening letters containing ricin last fall is responsible for the deadly poison that turned up in the Senate this week.

The typewritten letters addressed to the White House and Transportation Department warned that more ricin would be used unless new federal trucking regulations were scrapped.

The change in 60-year-old rules governing how often truck drivers must rest went into effect Jan. 4.

Three senior federal law enforcement officials told the Associated Press the FBI and Capitol Police Department were investigating the possibility the same person or people sent ricin-laced mail to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.

Hazardous materials teams from the FBI and Capitol police are searching for a letter or parcel that might have carried the ricin powder, which was found Monday in a mail-sorting room in Frist's personal office. The ricin appeared limited to Frist's office in the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Although three Senate buildings were closed for a second day Wednesday, Frist said they would begin opening today and the Dirksen building would be opened Monday.

The FBI also focused on ricin in its weekly intelligence bulletin to 18,000 state and local law enforcement agencies. The confidential bulletin said no threat letter had been found or other type of threat received in the Capitol case. It concentrated mostly on the dangers of ricin and how police should respond to potential contamination.

Gainer said investigators found "no obvious direct connection" between the Frist incident and the letters signed "Fallen Angel."

Those letters were discovered in mail facilities that serve the Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport in South Carolina and the White House. They were found Oct. 15 and Nov. 6.

The letters, described as nearly identical, claimed the author owned a tanker truck fleet company and demanded that hours of service rules for drivers remain unchanged, the FBI said.

The FBI said the author "claimed to have the ability to make large quantities of ricin and to use this poison," possibly to contaminate water supplies, if the regulations were not repealed before Jan. 4.

The South Carolina letter had a typewritten warning on the envelope: "Caution RICIN POISON enclosed in sealed container. Do not open without proper protection."

The envelope contained no delivery address and no postmark.

No one has fallen ill as a result of any of the letters. Ricin is a highly toxic substance that is relatively easy to make from castor beans.

There is no known antidote, but ricin is considered a less effective weapon for causing mass casualties than anthrax, which was mailed to Senate offices in late 2001, because it is more difficult to make airborne and requires inhalation of large quantities to be fatal.

The trucking industry has been working with the FBI and the Transportation Department inspector general's office on the investigation. The American Trucking Association has sent several bulletins to its members urging them to be on the lookout for people "displaying aggressive behavior" or engaging in suspicious activity.

One association bulletin asked that members "be alert for either a potential disgruntled trucking company, trucking company employee or person purporting to be from the trucking industry" who has made threats in the past against government agencies.

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