HOUSTON – A 48-year-old resident of Brookshire has been
ordered to prison after admitting to transportation of explosives with the
intent to kill, injure and intimidate a person, announced U.S. Attorney Ryan K.
Patrick along with Special Agent in Charge Perrye K. Turner of the FBI. Julia
Ann Poff pleaded guilty July 1, 2019.
Today, U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore handed Poff a
120-month sentence to be immediately followed by three years of supervised
release. She was also ordered to pay $9,700 in restitution.
Poff admitted to mailing a package on or about Oct. 2 - 3,
2016, that contained a homemade bomb that was addressed to the former president
of the United States. As part of her plea, she also acknowledged mailing two
similar packages addressed to the Texas governor and then Acting Social
Security Administrator.
Each of those packages contained a victim-activated, booby
trapped, improvised explosive device (IED) containing explosives materials.
The investigation revealed that on Oct. 6, 2016, authorities
intercepted a U.S. Postal Service (USPS) small, flat rate box at a White House
mail handling facility at Bolling Air Force Base in the District of Columbia.
They opened the package, and it appeared to contain a bomb.
An FBI explosives expert conducted an examination and determined
it to be a homemade bomb.
Further examination linked the box and its contents to Julia
Poff or her husband. The outer box contained a taped address label, under which
they found a feline hair. Testing revealed this hair was microscopically
consistent with the hairs taken from a cat the Poff family cared for and owned.
Also, a box contained within the USPS box contained a micro-USB cable box,
cellular phone, hobby fuse, matches, paper wadding, plastic sacks, sandpaper
and two 20-ounce coke bottle caps as well as pyrotechnics and smokeless powder.
Poff’s daughter identified the phone as her old cell phone
which was last seen in their home’s garage in August or September 2016.
Authorities also learned Poff used her bank debit card to purchase a micro-USB
box with the same bar code as the one found in the USPS package.
At the time of her plea, Poff admitted she was solely
responsible for sending the bomb-filled packages.
She has been and will remain in custody pending transfer to
a U.S. Bureau of Prisons facility to be determined in the near future.
The Bryan FBI JTTF conducted the investigation with
assistance from the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Texas Rangers, Social
Security Administration - Office of Inspector General (OIG) and Department of
Agriculture - OIG. The Bryan Resident Agency JTTF is comprised of the FBI;
sheriff’s offices in Brazos, Waller and Walker Counties; police departments in
Bryan, Texas A&M University and College Station; Secret Service; Texas
Department of Criminal Justice - OIG and Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s
Homeland Security Investigations.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Ralph Imperato, Rob Jones and
Alamdar Hamdani prosecuted the case.
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