Man Arrested After Ricin Seen in Fla. Home

[Rose Siding]

OCALA, Fla. -- A man was arrested after authorities allegedly found the deadly toxin ricin stashed in a cardboard box at his home along with a small cache of weapons, officials said Thursday.

Steven Michael Ekberg, 22, faces up to 10 years if convicted of possession of a biological agent. FBI agents said they didn't believe Ekberg, arrested Wednesday, had any connection with terrorist groups.

There was no explanation for how or why he obtained the ricin.

"The chemical substance is derived from the castor bean and that's a natural substance. I don't think castor beans are difficult to obtain," said FBI Special Agent Jeff Westcott in Jacksonville.

The suspect's mother, Theresa Ekberg, who lives with her son, declined to comment.

The sheriff's office was tipped off last week by an informant who alleged Ekberg had been carrying concealed weapons into clubs -- and boasted of having ricin in one of several vials and glass tubes he allegedly showed off.

"Ekberg had stated that if the government ever did anything to him, he would take some sort of action," according to a federal criminal complaint.
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-ricin-arrest,0,1415863.story?coll=sns-ap-nationworld-headlines

[Ilsa]

1. But there are no WMD in Iraq! n/t

[steve2470]

2. this story embarasses me for my great state of florida nt

[HysteryDiagnosis]

3. There were castor beans behind the shop in West Palm where I did

time (worked) by the hundreds.... growing wild, walked past the plants day after day.... whooda guessed it. I could have had many pounds of them if I wanted... but I certainly didn't want to even walk past them, much less touch them. I remember the story of the spy who was killed by ricin in a platinum bb, fired from an umbrella.... unreal. I hope that wasn't an urban legend and I am now going to become a target of yet more snickers.... :)

[Journeyman]

4. Georgi Markov. . .

Google the name, you'll find plenty on his life and his murder by ricin . . .

[NYC]

6. No snickers, but I think

he was jabbed with the umbrella tip. I don't think it was "shot" at him.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

8. I knew that.... I just didn't spell it out... didn't want to sound too

addicted to details... but really, that is the way I was told the story some years ago.. a man walked up behind him and "accidentally" poked him in the back of the leg with an umbrella... it was an air gun in disguise.... now that's real spy vs spy stuff.

[NYC]

9. Yes, very espionage-ish.

I had thought it happened on London Bridge, while Markov was crossing by foot. According to the BBC article I found, he was waiting at a bus stop.

That was quite a few years ago. 1978?

[HysteryDiagnosis]

10. Didn't get the date.... but check this out....

http://seclists.org/lists/politech/2004/Feb/0062.html
The New York Times weighs in with "A five-minute Internet search yesterday
produced a kitchen recipe using lye and acetone ..." And, wrote
the Atlanta Journal, "Some Internet sites offer a 13-step recipe..."
And in Congressional Research Service Report RS21383, "Ricin: Technical
Background and Potential Role in Terrorism:" "Recipes for the extraction of
ricin ... are widely available for purchase on the Internet ... "
If you're a terrorist or even just a bemused bystander, the message is
clear and authoritative by repetition. Go to the web; seek and ye shall
find a home formulation for a poison with no antidote.
But is this really a recipe for ricin?

[NYC]

11. From your link:

Entitled "How to Make Ricin," the recipe may appear slightly convincing to journalists and observers with no prior knowledge of the isolation and purification of fine biochemicals. However, there are no steps in the recipe specific to the purification of ricin.

The recipe includes instructions for the use of acetone and lye -- a
non-specific term for any strong base, usually sodium or potassium
hydroxide. Both are common chemicals. However, neither powerfully address any unique properties of ricin which would be exploited
to differentially separate it from every other complex component in the mash of a castor seed. Indeed, the entire recipe shows no real effort to achieve this end. Even the step by step instructions, as written, can be picked apart for a variety of reasons.

The best result that can be claimed for "How To Make Ricin" is that it
physically removes the hull of the castor seed and subjects the remains to a drying. One could just as well use the recipe on wheat germ or crushed peanuts. Of course, the latter do not contain ricin but the only reason the Screaming Electron posting could be loosely dubbed a recipe for the poison is that castor seeds come with ricin included.

-------
So, I guess you can't use Drano & nail polish remover to create your own deadly poison.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

12. We have 10 million 400 hundred quadzillion tons of chemicals

everywhere in this country. We have enough chemicals within our borders to kill every living thing on earth several times over... not to mention the chemical and biological weapons caches hither and yon.

Sooooooo... you figure it out... I just don't get it... then again, I spose we are not supposed to. The nations infrastructure, bridges, electrical, roads is falling apart, social sec. is going to be raped, medications for the elderly are untouchable, the job market sucks, our trade deficit almost can't be measured by ordinary means, our national debt cannot be measured by any means, and they are worried about some ricin in "one man's" house. Give me a frigging break.

This country is being terrorized alright, but it is being terrorized from within, not without.

[NYC]

14. I agree re terrorized from within.

Speaking of chemicals, did you read the thread on teflon? Very interesting.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1144587

[ret5hd]

19. hmmm...people do a pretty good job of extracting cocaine...

using acetone and diesel.

[NYC]

23. You forgot the formaldehyde.

None of those things seems very appealing.

[NYC]

7. It was possibly fired in bullet form.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2636459.stm

The poison ricin, which has been found by the British police at an address in London, was famously used to murder Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov in 1978.

Markov, a BBC World Service journalist and a strong critic of the communist regime, was killed in London when he was injected with ricin while he waited at a bus stop.

Nobody has ever been charged with the murder, but it is widely believed that the Bulgarian secret service and the KGB were behind it.

Bulgarian prosecutors said their investigation produced inconclusive results, and the case remains open.

The clever thing about ricin is it appears in hospital investigations as natural disease

Markov pathologist
Accounts of the incident differ. Some say a ricin-laced pellet was either fired or injected from an umbrella tip as Markov waited at the bus stop, on his way to the headquarters of the BBC's World Service.

Other accounts suggest the assailant used a syringe to inject the poison into Mr Markov's leg as he bent down to pick up an umbrella he had been carrying.

He experienced a sudden stinging pain in the back of his right leg, but despite pain continued on his way to work.

By evening Markov had developed a high fever and he died three days later.

More at link.

[Mithras61]

5. Stupid question...

How can he be convicted of of possession of a biological agent if he had ricin, which is a chemical agent?

Biological agents are nasty little things like virii and bacteria, and are generally extremely contagious, whereas chemical agents are generally only dangerous in concentrated form, which requires a fairly large ammount be deployed in a fairly small space, and typically disperse in a short amount of time (good thing, too, since we use 'em on bugs...).

[Just Me]

13. Why don't you distinguish how ricin, a nature-derived substance,...

,...is chemical rather than biological?

If you can distinguish that which can produce biological agents from those which produce chemical agents, you would enlighten "Just Me".

I always thought "biological agents" were those which could be dispersed without any human intrusion of additional substances (so to speak). Whereas, "chemical agents" required human invention/intrusion of additional natural substances.

That was just a very basic understanding I held onto,...so, I'd really appreciate your additional knowledge on the subject.

[Mithras61]

16. I'm no expert...

but it was my understanding that biological agents are essentially diseases (and the more virulent the better), where chemical agents are essentially poisons (and non contagious). My understanding may be incorrect, though. It may be that the source is the definitive specification, and not how it acts.

The Feds DO classify ricin as a poison, not as a disease, but the site I was looking at didn't classify it as chemical or biological, so I applied my limited understanding and asked for clarification.

[jmowreader]

22. Ricin is a chemical warfare agent

A biological warfare agent is some sort of disease-producing agent.

A chemical warfare agent is a poison.

Consider cyanide. It's a blood agent and we can all agree that it's a chemical warfare agent. Forgive the next sentence for it is late: in either the late 1970s or early 1980s, either Iran or Iraq (I think it was Iraq in the late-seventies) built a plant to manufacture Natural Cherry Flavoring and Natural Peach Flavoring in Florida. Fruit flavoring's got to be the most benign substance in the world, right? Not so. The people who owned the plant wanted the pits, because you can extract cyanide in minute quantities from a stone-fruit pit--and if you have a shitload of pits available, like you would if you were making fruit flavoring, you can make a militarily significant amount of cyanide. The US government finally forced them to sell the plant, after they figured out what they were doing with it.

Also consider the poison dart frog--200 micrograms of the skin secretion from a red poison dart frog (that ain't much, folks) is enough to kill Rush Limbaugh. 135mcg will kill a 150-pound person. Definite chemical warfare agent.

Ricin's a poison, therefore it's a chemical warfare agent. The source of the chemical is unimportant.

[genieroze]

15. According to this site it's a biological agent

http://www.emedicine.com/emerg/topic889.htm

"Background: Ricin is a potent toxin that has potential to be used as an agent of biological warfare and as a weapon of mass destruction (WMD). Ricin is widely available, easily produced, and derived from the beans of the castor plant (Ricinus communis)."

[Mithras61]

17. Okay, that makes sense...

I was using http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/ricin/facts.asp and it doesn't explicitly say it's a bio agent and not a chemical agent, but does say it's a poison, which in Army lingo equated to chemical agent, at least as it was used by my artillery unit's NBC officer.

[sakabatou]

18. They have people in jail forever for less than this!

EDIT: My 500th post!

[The Backlash Cometh]

20. Anyone know what his race is?

Because in all the time that I've been selected for special Airport screening, the one kind of person that is underrepresented in the line is young white males. Makes me wonder what the security guys might find out if they do a drug swab on some of their personal items.

[ScrewyRabbit]

21. If he were an Arab, or any kind of muslim, this would be the ONLY

story on the news.

Instead, who cares.

[lostnfound]

24. Wonder if he turns out to be a RW nutjob like William Krar?

(That's the Texan with ties to white suprem. groups found with bio/chemo weapon on his property.)

[HysteryDiagnosis]

25. Well then... we'll just have to make that story go away.... eom