03.03.12
Ricin kooks: Heard it on TV
I’ve been avoiding this one all week it’s so dispiriting and ridiculous.
A obese diabetic car thief in Florida — once slightly famous as an Elvis impersonator in Maine — told police when they came for him he had ricin.
This caused the evacuation of the motel he was holed up in with his son.
His son cooked him a bowl of oatmeal, which stabilized the man’s blood sugar, calming him down. The police then arrested him without incident.
A former Elvis impersonator from Maine who reportedly drove a stolen car from Augusta to Florida is charged with threatening police there with a weapon of mass destruction.
Michael James Conley, 64, of Waterville told the Miami Herald he was suffering from diabetes Monday when he told police in Fort Pierce, Fla., that a small vial he was holding was loaded with the lethal toxin ricin.
Conley was charged with possession of a hoax weapon of mass destruction, resisting an officer without violence and conspiring to deal stolen property. He was subsequently charged with contempt of court. Conley was being held at the St. Lucie County jail in lieu of $115,000 bail.
Conley’s son, Michael Harootian-Hughes, 28, who was in the hotel room at the time of the standoff and reportedly made the oatmeal that helped his father, also was charged with possession of a hoax weapon of mass destruction. He was being held in the same jail in lieu of $20,000 cash bail.
Yes, possession of a hoax weapon of mass destruction is against the law. In Conley’s case, it was salt. The news story also discusses his more famous criminal record, one involving murder conviction, later overturned.
And in Florida it is a second class felony.
Quote:
During his interview at the jail, Michael Conley initially said he made up the word “Ricin.??? However, he finally said he heard the name during a television broadcast about terrorists in the Mideast.