Illinois Man Arrested After Allegedly Mailing White Powder to Four Members of Congress With His Own Return Address

An Illinois man has been arrested on suspicion of mailing letters containing a suspicious white powder to four members of Congress, after authorities say he wrote his own name and home address on each envelope.

Matthew Unglesbee, 36, of Quincy, remained in the custody of US marshals on Tuesday. He faces federal charges of perpetrating a hoax and sending threatening communications through the mail.

An eight-page criminal complaint was unsealed on Monday. In it, Charis Hobbs, a taskforce agent with the FBI's Springfield office, wrote that Unglesbee admitted in an interview on Sunday that he sent the letters to the four politicians, who were not identified. He told the agent the substance was salt, chosen because it "kind of looks like" anthrax. Preliminary testing found no biological or chemical toxin.

According to the filing, each letter held a white granular substance and a handwritten note reading "ha ha." The letter to one US senator also contained granules and read "Hah enjoy the gift." All four were white, letter-sized envelopes with Unglesbee's name and Quincy address written on them.

Staffers at the four congressional offices in northern Illinois did not open any of the envelopes, the complaint said. The offices had warned one another to watch for mail bearing Unglesbee's name. On Wednesday, FBI personnel trained in handling weapons of mass destruction and biochemical toxin threats were sent to three of the offices after staff contacted authorities, and hazardous materials response teams attended two of them.

After retrieving the letters, FBI agents went to Unglesbee's home. There they found another envelope, empty and addressed to the Washington DC office of one of the same Congress members, but never sent.

Unglesbee told investigators he mailed the four letters after overhearing someone in a restaurant mention news coverage of other letters being sent. Earlier in October, the FBI and US Postal Inspection Service said they were investigating multiple reports of suspicious letters sent to state officials and election offices across the country. Unglesbee denied any part in those other mailings.

He allegedly said he expected the lawmakers to "take it serious" because the powder could be mistaken for anthrax, which he knew was dangerous and would force hazmat teams to respond. "Unglesbee claimed he was joking but recognized the recipients would not know he was joking and could perceive it as a threat," the complaint said.

In a Justice Department press release on Monday, Ryan Presley, special agent in charge of the FBI's Springfield field office, said authorities were focused on "keeping our public institutions safe from intimidation." He added: "Mailing unknown substances to congressional offices creates fear and disrupts the public institutions vital to our democracy. We, along with our partners, will remain vigilant in identifying and holding accountable those whose actions threaten to intimidate public officials or disrupt our democratic systems."

Unglesbee was tentatively scheduled to appear at a detention hearing on Wednesday afternoon in federal court in Springfield.