A man accused of mailing hundreds of anthrax hoax letters, including one to George Bush, the US president, has been arrested. The arrest came two days after he was charged with threatening to use a weapon of mass destruction. Derek Brodie, 42, sent more than 200 letters, each containing a white sheet of paper with the word "anthrax" written vertically in multi-coloured block letters, according to the FBI. The letters were sent to government agencies, media personalities, actors and actresses and businesses. "He had a habit of using the same rainbow-coloured pencil," said FBI Special Agent Steve Siegel. "He was sending these out to hundreds of people, various governmental agencies, media people, actresses."| If all the criminals were smart, the prisons would be empty. |
Three days later, a letter carrier intercepted 19 more of the letters from an outgoing mailbox in Brodie's multi-unit building, and from that point on, more than 200 were intercepted, all with the same format, Goldkopf said. The one to Bush, addressed to "President Bush, Abilene, TX,: was found in the building's outgoing mailbox on 21 September, according to the complaint.
