Quincy Man Charged After White Powder Letters Sent to Four Members of Congress

A 36-year-old man from Quincy, Illinois, has been charged with federal crimes after letters containing white powder were sent to four members of Congress. Matthew Unglesbee faces charges of perpetrating a hoax and sending threatening communications through the mail, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of Illinois.

An eight-page criminal complaint, written by FBI Springfield taskforce agent Charis Hobbs, was unsealed on Monday, October 26. A criminal complaint is the formal written charge that starts a federal case. According to The Guardian, Unglesbee wrote his own name and home address in Quincy on each of the four white, letter-sized envelopes.

Each letter held a white granular substance and a handwritten note reading "ha ha." A letter addressed to an unnamed U.S. senator read "Hah enjoy the gift." The four offices involved are in northern Illinois. None of the staffers who handled the letters opened the envelopes.

FBI personnel trained to handle weapons of mass destruction were sent to three of the offices, and hazmat response teams, who handle hazardous materials, attended two of them. Preliminary testing of the powder did not reveal any biological or chemical toxin.

In an interview on Sunday, Unglesbee admitted sending the letters to four politicians, who were not identified. He told investigators the substance was salt, saying it "kind of looks like" anthrax, a dangerous bacterial disease. He said he mailed the letters after hearing someone in a restaurant mention news of other suspicious letters being sent.

Unglesbee denied taking part in other suspicious mailings. He said he expected recipients would "take it serious," because the powder could be perceived as anthrax and could prompt a hazmat response. He also said he was joking, but acknowledged that recipients would not know that and could perceive the letters as a threat.

When FBI agents visited his home, they found another envelope that had not been sent. It was empty and addressed to the Washington, D.C. office of one of the same members of Congress.

Unglesbee remained in the custody of U.S. marshals on Tuesday. He was tentatively scheduled for a detention hearing on Wednesday afternoon in federal court in Springfield, where a judge would decide whether he is held before trial.