Attorney: Miss. man denies mailing suspected ricin
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OXFORD, Miss. (AP) — A Mississippi man charged with mailing letters with suspected ricin to national leaders wrote in online postings that he had uncovered a conspiracy to sell human body parts on the black market, and on Thursday his attorney said he was surprised by his arrest and maintains he is innocent.
Paul Kevin Curtis, 45, wore shackles and a Johnny Cash T-shirt Thursday in a federal courtroom. His handcuffs were taken off for the brief hearing, and he said little. He faces two charges on accusations of threatening President Barack Obama and others. If convicted, he could face up to 15 years in prison.
He did not enter a plea on the two charges. The judge said a preliminary hearing and a detention hearing are scheduled for 3 p.m. Friday.
Attorney Christi R. McCoy said Curtis "maintains 100 percent that he did not do this."
"I know Kevin, I know his family," she said. "This is a huge shock."
McCoy said she has not yet decided whether to seek a hearing to determine whether Curtis is mentally competent to stand trial.
Curtis, who was arrested Wednesday at his home in Corinth, near the Tennessee state line, was being held in the Lafayette County jail in Oxford, Miss.
An FBI affidavit says Curtis sent three letters with suspected ricin to Obama, U.S. Sen. Roger Wickerand a Mississippi judge. The letters read:
"No one wanted to listen to me before. There are still 'Missing Pieces.' Maybe I have your attention now even if that means someone must die. This must stop. To see a wrong and not expose it, is to become a silent partner to its continuance. I am KC and I approve this message."
The affidavit says Curtis had sent letters to Wicker's office several times before with the message, "this is Kevin Curtis and I approve this message."
In several letters to Wicker and other officials, Curtis said he was writing a novel about black market body parts called "Missing Pieces."
Curtis also had posted language similar to the letters on his Facebook page, the affidavit says.
The documents indicate Curtis had been distrustful of the government for years. In 2007, Curtis' ex-wife called police in Booneville, Miss., to report that her husband was extremely delusional, anti-government and felt the government was spying on him with drones.
Curtis was arrested Wednesday at his home in Corinth, near the Tennessee state line. He was being held in the Lafayette County jail in Oxford, Miss.
Curtis had been living in Corinth, a city of about 14,000 in extreme northeastern Mississippi, since December, but local police had not had any contact with him before his arrest, Corinth Police Department Capt. Ralph Dance told The Associated Press on Thursday.
Ricky Curtis, who said he was Kevin Curtis' cousin, described his cousin as a "super entertainer" who impersonated Elvis and numerous other singers.
Wicker said Thursday in Washington that he had met Curtis when he was working as Elvis at a party Wicker and his wife helped throw for an engaged couple.
Wicker called him "quite entertaining" but said: "My impression is that since that time he's had mental issues and perhaps is not as stable as he was back then."
Wicker's spokesman, Ryan Annison, said the party occurred about 10 years ago.
Police maintained a perimeter Thursday around Curtis' home. Four men who appeared to be investigators were in the neighborhood to speak to neighbors. There didn't appear to be any hazardous-material crews, and no neighbors were evacuated.
The material discovered in a letter to Wicker has been confirmed through field testing and laboratory testing to contain ricin, Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Terrance Gainer said Thursday. The FBI has not yet reported the results of its own testing of materials sent to Wicker and to President Barack Obama.
"Our field tests indicate it was ricin. Our lab tests confirm it was ricin. So I don't get why others are continuing to use equivocal words about this," Gainer said.
Preliminary field tests can often show false positives for ricin. Ricin is derived from the castor plant that makes castor oil. There is no antidote, and it's deadliest when inhaled. The material sent to Wicker was not weaponized, Gainer said.
An FBI intelligence bulletin obtained by The Associated Press said the two letters were postmarked Memphis, Tenn.
A Mississippi state lawmaker, Democratic Rep. Steve Holland of Plantersville, said his 80-year-old mother, Lee County Justice Court Judge Sadie Holland, received a threatening letter April 10 with a substance that has been sent to a lab for testing. He said this letter was also signed "K.C."
"Like any country woman, she did a smell test," Steve Holland said. "She said, 'It sort of burned my nose a little bit.'"
He said once she read the letter, she immediately called the local sheriff.
David Daniels, a 63-year-old attorney in Tupelo, said he has had a restraining order against Curtis since 2002. He said Curtis threatened him after a rehearsal for an Elvis impersonators' show that Daniels was hired to help organize.
He filed a simple assault charge against Curtis, and Sadie Holland was the judge in that case. She sentenced him to six months in jail, Daniels said, though he served only a few days.
Sadie Holland has been "sequestered by the FBI" and told not to talk to anybody for now, and is undergoing medical tests, her son said.
Ricky Curtis said his family was shocked by news of the arrest. He said his cousin had written about problems he had with a cleaning business and that he felt the government had not treated him well, but he said nobody in the family would have expected this. He said the writings were titled, "Missing Pieces."
"I don't think anybody had a clue that this kind of stuff was weighing on his mind," Ricky Curtis said in a telephone interview.
A MySpace page for a cleaning company called The Cleaning Crew confirms that they "do windows" and has a profile photo of "Kevin Curtis, Master of Impressions." A YouTube channel under the name of Kevin Curtis has dozens of videos of him performing as different famous musicians, including Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly and Kid Rock.
Multiple online posts on various websites under the name Kevin Curtis refer to the conspiracy he claimed to uncover when working at a local hospital from 1998 to 2000. And on Thursday, his attorney said he had been an activist in the field of organ and tissue donation that stemmed from his work at that hospital.
The author wrote that the conspiracy began when he "discovered a refrigerator full of dismembered body parts & organs wrapped in plastic in the morgue of the largest non-metropolitan health care organization in the United States of America."
That hospital, North Mississippi Medical Center, issued a statement Thursday saying Curtis was fired in 2000. It did not give a reason for his firing but said it was not because of allegations he made against the hospital.
The hospital said it works with an agency that specializes in harvesting organs and tissue from donors, and then immediately transports those organs for donation. The hospital said it does not receive payment for the donated organs.
Curtis wrote that he was trying to "expose various parties within the government, FBI, police departments" for what he believed was "a conspiracy to ruin my reputation in the community as well as an ongoing effort to break down the foundation I worked more than 20 years to build in the country music scene."
In one post, Curtis said he sent letters to Wicker and other politicians.
"I never heard a word from anyone. I even ran into Roger Wicker several different times while performing at special banquets and fundraisers in northeast, Mississippi but he seemed very nervous while speaking with me and would make a fast exit to the door when I engaged in conversation..."
Jim Waide, an attorney in Tupelo, Miss., said he was working with Curtis' family Thursday to put together a statement about the man. Waide said the family told him Curtis has been diagnosed as bipolar and was put on medication about three years ago. "It's been a real problem to keep him on his medication," Waide said in a phone interview from Tupelo.
"He has a long history of mental illness," Waide said. "When he is on his medication, he is terrific, he's nice, he's functional. When he's off his medication, that's when there's a problem."
Waide represented Curtis in a federal lawsuit he filed in August 2000 against North Mississippi Medical Center in Tupelo. Curtis claimed employment discrimination. A judge dismissed the case in July 2001. Records show it was "dismissed for failure to prosecute."
Court records show Waide got a judge's permission to withdraw as Curtis' attorney in January 2001. Waide said he withdrew from the case because Curtis didn't trust him.
"He thought I was conspiring against him," Waide said. "He thinks everybody is out to get him."
The FBI said there was no indication of a connection between the letters and the Monday bombing in Boston that killed three people and injured more than 170. The letters to Obama and Wicker were postmarked April 8, before the marathon.
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Associated Press writers contributing to this report from Washington were: Eileen Sullivan, Laurie Kellman, Donna Cassata, Henry Jackson and Eric Tucker. AP news researcher Monika Mathur contributed from New York. AP writer Emily Wagster Pettus contributed from Jackson, Miss.
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