Released from Las Vegas hos­pi­tal, he faces toxin, weapons charges

AP

LAS VEGAS — An unem­ployed graphic designer who author­i­ties believe was nearly killed by ricin was arrested Wednes­day on fed­eral charges that he pos­sessed the deadly toxin as part of an “exotic idea,” never car­ried out, to poi­son his enemies.

Roger Bergen­dorff, who author­i­ties allege began mak­ing ricin a decade ago, was arrested upon his release from the hos­pi­tal where he had been treated since Feb. 14.

He is charged with pos­ses­sion of a bio­log­i­cal toxin and two weapons offenses stem­ming from mate­ri­als author­i­ties said were found Feb. 26 and Feb. 28 in his room at an extended-stay motel sev­eral blocks off the Las Vegas Strip.

“He was released from the hos­pi­tal and he’s in cus­tody,” said FBI agent Joseph Dickey, a spokesman for the bureau’s Las Vegas office.

The charges carry a pos­si­ble penalty of 30 years in fed­eral prison and a $750,000 fine. Bergen­dorff, 57, was sched­uled to appear Wednes­day after­noon before a fed­eral judge in U.S. Dis­trict Court in Las Vegas.

Began mak­ing ricin a decade ago
Pros­e­cu­tors said in a six-page com­plaint that Bergen­dorff told inves­ti­ga­tors he first made ricin in San Diego in the late 1990s, and later made the sub­stance while liv­ing in Reno and in the base­ment of his cousin’s house in River­ton, Utah.

The com­plaint said that a June 2002 receipt for cas­tor bean seed, pur­chased from a Michi­gan com­pany, was found in an Utah stor­age locker rented by Bergen­dorff. The listed pur­chaser, “Roger’s Patio and Gar­den,” was appar­ently a fic­ti­tious busi­ness cre­ated by Bergen­dorff, the com­plaint said.

Can­cer research is the only legal use for ricin, which has no anti­dote and can be lethal in amounts the size of the head of a pin.

Author­i­ties do not allege Bergendorff’s pos­ses­sion of ricin had any­thing to do with ter­ror­ism, accord­ing to court documents.

“Bergen­dorff char­ac­ter­ized the pro­duc­tion of ricin as an ‘exotic idea,’” the com­plaint said.

Over the course of sev­eral inter­views with the FBI, “Bergen­dorff admit­ted that there have been peo­ple who have made him mad over the years and he had thoughts about caus­ing them harm to the point of mak­ing some plans,” the com­plaint said. “How­ever, he main­tained that he never acted on those thoughts or plans.”

Symp­toms sug­gested ricin expo­sure
Offi­cials say Bergendorff’s symp­toms were con­sis­tent with ricin expo­sure, but it may never be cer­tain that the toxin sick­ened him because all traces of the sub­stance are elim­i­nated from the body within days, and the ricin in his hotel room was found well after he got sick.

Bergendorff’s cousin Thomas Tholen, 54, was charged this month in Salt Lake City with mis­pri­sion of felony, which means fail­ing to report a crime.

The com­plaint said Tholen told inves­ti­ga­tors that Bergen­dorff had talked to him about how easy it would be to make ricin, and that Bergen­dorff showed him a vial or beaker with a pow­der he believed to be ricin in Decem­ber 2005.

Tholen declined to com­ment when reached by tele­phone Wednes­day. His lawyer Greg Sko­r­das denied Tholen knew Bergen­dorff had ricin.

“Tom always main­tained that he was unaware of Bergen­dorff ever pro­duc­ing or pos­sess­ing or man­u­fac­tur­ing ricin while they were together,” Sko­r­das said.

Roger Bergendorff’s brother, Erich Bergen­dorff, said he spoke with him Tues­day by telephone.

“He just said he wasn’t going to face charges, but I don’t think that was based on fact,” said Erich Bergen­dorff, who lives in Escon­dido, Calif. “It’s my impres­sion that he didn’t under­stand the haz­ard he posed.”

Erich Bergen­dorff said he did not know whether his brother had spo­ken to an attorney.

Four weeks in hos­pi­tal
Bergen­dorff, who lived with his dog and two cats, sum­moned an ambu­lance to his Las Vegas motel room Feb. 14, com­plain­ing of res­pi­ra­tory dis­tress. He spent almost four weeks uncon­scious at a Las Vegas hos­pi­tal. Fam­ily mem­bers said he also was treated for kid­ney failure.

Tholen was col­lect­ing Bergendorff’s belong­ings from the motel room Feb. 28 when he gave a motel man­ager a plas­tic bag con­tain­ing sev­eral vials of what turned out to be ricin powder.

The com­plaint refers to the sub­stance as “crude” and 2.9 per­cent “active ricin.”

“That’s not pure,” said Andrew Ter­nay Jr., founder of the Rocky Moun­tain Cen­ter for Home­land Defense at the Uni­ver­sity of Den­ver and author of “The Lan­guage of Night­mares,” a glos­sary of terms for chem­i­cal, bio­log­i­cal and nuclear weapons.

“But it is deadly no mat­ter,” Ter­nay said. “It’s just that it would take more to kill someone.”

Police and home­land secu­rity offi­cials have said they found no ricin con­t­a­m­i­na­tion in any place Bergen­dorff stayed.

U.S. Attor­ney Gre­gory Brower said the charges of pos­ses­sion of unreg­is­tered firearms and pos­ses­sion of firearms not iden­ti­fied by ser­ial num­ber stemmed from the seizure by Las Vegas police of two .25-caliber pis­tols, a .22-caliber Ruger rifle and a .22-caliber Brown­ing pis­tol with a silencer.