Jury acquits Maine woman in anthrax letter joke case

CONCORD, N.H. – A federal jury decided Wednesday a letter containing salt and sent as a joke during last fall’s anthrax scare was not a crime, and acquitted the woman who sent it.

The jury deliberated about three hours after listening to one day of testimony and closing arguments.

Kinley Gregg, 38, of York, Maine, was visibly relieved and hugged her brother, Tom, and friends, who were in the courtroom.

“The color came back to her face,” said one of her lawyers, Jeffrey Winstein.

Winstein said everyone was extremely emotional about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but that his partner, Bob McDaniel, was able to explain to the jury during closing arguments that “we should not allow those events to cause us to turn on our own people.”

Gregg declined to comment.

Gregg was charged with sending a “threatening communication” to a friend on Oct. 30. If convicted, she faced up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

She is one of more than 70 people nationwide facing charges of mailing such communications during the national anthrax scare in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. So far, four people have been convicted, according to Dan Mihalko, U.S. postal inspector in charge of congressional and public affairs. None of the cases involved actually mailing anthrax, he said.

On the first day of the two-day trial in U.S. District Court, McDaniel told jurors Gregg’s letter “was probably the dumbest of all possible moves.” But he said it was no intended threat.

In closing arguments Wednesday after presenting no defense witnesses, he said the government has to prove it was an intended threat, not just that it was suspicious.

“Because they [letters] were suspicious does not make them criminal,” he said.

He used examples of children mailing birthday invitations with party sprinkles inside.

“In this country, you can’t commit a crime by accident,” he said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Kinsella argued that everyone who is guilty of a crime is guilty of an error in judgment.

“That’s what happened in this case, an error in judgment and a criminal offense,” he told jurors.

He acknowledged it is not a crime to mail salt, but that everything must be put “in the context in which it occurred,” during the anthrax scare. He noted earlier testimony by the postal worker who said he was very nervous when the “white crystally substance” leaked onto his hand.

Judge Joseph DiClerico, in his instructions to the jury, said the government must prove the letter contained a threat to someone and that the defendant reasonably could have foreseen it as a threat.

“The government argues you can communicate a threat by actions and can communicate a joke by actions,” McDaniel said. He said that is enough to leave reasonable doubt, and, therefore, “the case has not been proven.”

McDaniel noted that Gregg immediately apologized for sending the letter when questioned by postal authorities. She did not try to hide her identity, McDaniel said.

He said the government overreacted.

“They have made a federal case out of it,” he said.

“We felt helpless. We wanted to strike back,” he said of the Sept. 11 attacks. “They, [prosecutors] like the rest of us, wanted to do something … and they brought this case.

“She is not a criminal, not a terrorist,” he said of Gregg.