Man pleads guilty to sending white powder, threat to Michele Dauber

Oct. 18, 2018, 1:47 a.m.

A Massachusetts man agreed on Friday to plead guilty to mailing threatening letters, each containing a white powder, to Stanford Law professor Michele Dauber and five other public figures across the country earlier this year. Dauber received an envelope from the man, including the white powder and a threat of rape, in February.

Now, twenty-five-year-old childcare worker Daniel Frisiello will plead guilty to 13 counts of mailing a threat to injure the person of another and to six counts of false information, according to an announcement by the U.S. Attorney’s Office District of Massachusetts.

Other recipients of Frisiello’s threatening letters include Donald Trump Jr., U.S. Senator Deborah Stebanow (D-MI), California Republican congressional candidate Antonio Sabato Jr., Los Angeles-based federal prosecutor Nicola T. Hannah and the manager of a Massachusetts company that had fired one of Frisiello’s family members.

Frisiello’s guilty plea comes nearly eight months after Dauber received the threatening envelope. At the time, Dauber was campaigning for the recall of Judge Aaron Persky, who presided over the infamous Brock Turner sexual assault case and was recalled in June.

“I’m relieved this matter is resolved,” Dauber wrote in an email to The Daily. “It was obviously very frightening and upsetting.”

More recently, Dauber opposed the confirmation of Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Last month, she created a PAC aimed at political candidates facing allegations of sexual misconduct.

According to U.S. Attorney Scott Garland, Frisiello was a “prolific letter writer” who wrote to public figures to share his ideas. However, he also had a “darker side,” Garland said.

Frisiello’s attorney, William Fick, declined to comment after the hearing. However, Fick told the judge that Frisiello has cognitive and development issues from the brain damage he suffered at birth. Frisiello has also been on medication his entire life, Fick said.

U.S. District Court Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton scheduled a sentencing hearing for Jan. 16, 2019.

 

Contact Berber Jin at fjin16 ‘at’ stanford.edu.

Berber Jin is a senior history major and desk editor for the university beat at the Daily. He enjoys covering university China policy and technology ethics, and is currently writing an honors thesis on the Caribbean anti-colonialist George Padmore. He is originally from New York, NY.

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