SEQUIM — The Agnew woman who mailed threatening letters to a Sequim police officer — including one with white powder that shut down a Tacoma postal facility for several hours — will be sentenced today in U.S. District Court.
U.S. attorneys will recommend 10 months’ confinement followed by three years of supervised release for Janet Ann Miller, 44, who pleaded guilty last year to mailing a threatening communication.
Under federal sentencing guidelines, Miller could face nearly three years of incarceration, but the government is recommending a lower sentence because of “severe mental health issues,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Mike Lang wrote in his sentencing memorandum.
Judge Thomas Zilly will sentence Miller at 1:30 p.m. today in federal court in Seattle.
Investigators from the U.S. Postal Inspection Service arrested Miller at her home last July after several months of investigation into five threatening letters sent to Sequim police, targeting Officer Chris Wright.
Razor blades
One letter, mailed in June 2003, contained five single-edged razor blades stained with a red liquid and the messages, “The end is near” and “You will die soon,” according to federal court records.
Another letter, mailed in April 2003, prompted the evacuation of the U.S. Postal Service sorting facility in Tacoma after employees there discovered a white powdery substance next to the letter on a sorting table.
The facility, which sorts mail to and from the North Olympic Peninsula, was closed for several hours, and some employees were sent to the hospital for precautionary decontamination and treatment. Biologists later determined the substance was not a biotoxin.