Man arrested for sending OBAMA a poisonous letter

A 45-year-old father of four from
Mississippi was arrested on
Wednesday in a scheme to kill US
President Barack Obama with a
poisoned letter.
The letter to Obama contained deadly
ricin, according to a preliminary test
of the granular substance.
Paul Kevin Curtis is an Elvis
impersonator on cruise ships and
gambling boats, his old man said.
"You can't imagine what a shock it is,"
a baffled Jack Curtis Sr. said in a
telephone interview Wednesday night,
not long after federal agents arrested
his son.
"I don't ever believe he would do that.
How would he even be able to get a
hold of ricin?"
The father said the suspect in the
letter plot was nabbed while pulling
out of his Corinth, Miss., driveway, on
his way to pick up his children and
take them to an evening church
service.
"It's a sad state of affairs," Curtis said.
"I literally detest Obama. I hate that
he was even elected to start with and I
certainly can't believe he beat
Romney.
"But I can't think of any rhyme or
reason why Kevin would do anything
like that," he added. "I've never talked
to him about Obama and Wicker, I
don't know. I know very little about
him."
The dad said his son, who goes by
Kevin, at one point owned an office
cleaning business in Tupelo but quit
that several years ago to focus on his
Elvis act.
"He's really good at what he does," the
father said, noting that his son once
finished seventh in an Elvis
impersonation competition in
Memphis. "I'm shocked as all get-out."
The potentially deadly letter
addressed to Obama and mailed to the
White House was one of three that
were intercepted Wednesday, the
same day three suspicious packages
led to a partial lockdown of a Senate
building.
U.S. Capitol Police lifted the security
restrictions about 1 p.m. after the
parcels proved to be harmless.
The apparent attempt on the
President's life and the other
suspicious packages that turned up
across the U.S. Wednesday heightened
tensions created by the Boston
Marathon bombings on Monday.
The FBI announced its arrest of Curtis
in a statement Wednesday night, but
the mailings were not believed to be
related to the terror attack in Boston.
The letters, postmarked April 8 in
Memphis, were caught at offsite
screening facilities before they
reached the White House, the district
office of Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.)
and the office of a Mississippi judicial
official.
A screed posted to the consumer
advocacy website Ripoff Report and
signed by a Kevin Curtis of Booneville,
Miss., a town near Corinth, hinted at
why the suspect might have harbored
anger toward Wicker.
The writer of the complaint claims to
have owned and operated a cleaning
business that did work for the North
Mississippi Medical Center in Tupelo.
The rant, which appears to have been
written several years ago, details the
writer's treatment by the hospital and
mentions letters sent to, and not
returned by, Roger Wicker, who the
writer refers to as a state
representative.
It also mentions rebuffs by politicians
Trent Lott and Thad Cochran, and ends
with the sign-off, "This is Kevin Curtis
and I approve this report." The line is
similar to one that reportedly ended
the letters mailed to Wicker and
Obama this week: "I am KC, and I
approve this message."
The discoveries coincided with scares
created by three suspicious packages
at a Senate office building. Part of a
Senate building was put into lockdown
when the suspicious par, but U.S.
Capitol Police lifted the security
restrictions at about 1 p.m. after the
three packages at the Capitol complex
proved to be harmless.
The letters to Obama and Wicker
contained a threatening message: "To
see a wrong and not expose it, is to
become a silent partner to its
continuance," according to an FBI
bulletin obtained by The Associated
Press. They were signed, "I am KC and
I approve this message."
Authorities were awaiting the results
of more thorough analysis of the letter
because quick field tests are notorious
for returning false positives for ricin, a
byproduct of processing castor beans
that is lethal if inhaled or ingested.
The fact the scare resulting from the
potentially deadly letters followed so
soon after the Boston attack was eerily
reminiscent of the anthrax mailings
that came on the heels of 9/11.