| Huffington Post |
| A fanatical supporter of “Prince of Pot” Marc Emery has been arrested for repeated death threats to Emery’s federal prosecutors |
An unhinged Canadian man with a diaper obsession has been charged with sending a series of death threats to federal prosecutors in Seattle just before “Prince of Pot” Marc Emery’s extradition to the United States to face marijuana charges.
Paul George Cartier, 50, has “a history of other threats,” according to the U.S. Secret Service, reports Keegan Hamilton at the Seattle Weekly, including once having mailed a letter to the White House containing white power labeled “anthrax.”
Emery, the B.C.-based marijuana seed millionaire, pleaded guilty in 2008 to exporting cannabis seeds to the U.S. After having been indicted in Seattle, Emery almost worked out a deal under which he could have served his time in a Canadian prison, but when that fell through, the feds were busily working to get the Prince of Pot on the American side of the border.
Bragging that he made $2 million a year from his mail-order marijuana seed business, Emery cut a flamboyant and outspoken figure in the cannabis community, crusading for pot law reform and donating to various weed-friendly causes. He was a major contributor to the 2008 presidential campaign of libertarian Republican Ron Paul.
Emery’s high-profile case and apparent martyrdom “spawned a devoted following,” the Weekly reports, and on the afternoon of December 10, 2009, “perhaps his most fanatical minion dialed the Western Washington U.S. Attorney’s office.”
That would be Cartier, and his rambling voice message — left for a deputy assistant federal prosecutor identified in court documents only as T.G. — included the following choice phrases:
Hey, go fuck yourself ‘cuz you touch him, you extradite him, you’re gonna be dead. Your office is gonna be taken out and you’ll be killed. I’m not messin’ around here. I’ve got some hit men who’ll get ya, and I’ve got some people in the U.S. Government, and the CIA, and this is for real. Don’t touch Marc. You leave him right where he is. He’s not coming to Seattle. You do not handle him or touch him. […] You’re dead already.
Apparently leaving a voice message with a death threat wasn’t enough of a day’s work for Cartier, because he then also sent a fax to the U.S. Attorney’s office a few minutes later. Here’s what the fax said:
Cartier still wasn’t done after sending the fax; he then made a brief phone call to the receptionist in the U.S. Attorney’s office, according to court documents saying “I’m going to fucking kill you and [prosecutor]T.G. when I get to town.”
After a week of quiet, Cartier, on December 17, allegedly left another voice mail, this time calling himself “666” and repeating his extremely odd “diapers” death threat. He ended the message with the phrase “You’re all dead.”
After another threatening phone exchange with the receptionist, federal investigators indicted Cartier on December 23, 2009 on felony “interstate threat” charges.
After two and a half years, Cartier was finally arrested on May 8. He’s being held in federal custody pending a mental competency exam.
Emery remains in federal prison in Mississippi, from which he campaigns for, among other causes, Washington’s I-502 semi-legalization measure, which will be on November’s general election ballot.
