Dec 23, 2003 3 min read

By JOE MANDAK Associated Press Writer

PITTSBURGH (AP) – Chad Michael Olson was sentenced to spend a day in the custody of U.S. Marshals on Monday for mailing himself a fake anthrax threat more than two years ago. But because of cases like his, someone who does the same thing today could expect to spend 21/2 years or more in federal prison.

Olson, 21, of Washington, Pa., was only 19 years old when he mailed himself an envelope filled with sugar that read, “This is for you.”

It was October 2001, soon after letters containing real anthrax killed five people and sickened at least 17 others in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Because of a spate of bogus threats, the sentencing guidelines for threatening to use a weapon of mass destruction were toughened, federal prosecutors said.

Although the letter was addressed to Olson in care of a Salvation Army chapter where he was a volunteer, another woman at the post opened it and notified authorities. The building was evacuated, a Hazmat team called and the FBI investigated.

Olson later confessed, saying he only wanted to play the hero in discovering the substance and didn’t expect that someone else would open the letter. And again Monday in federal court he apologized, saying he didn’t realize the fuss that the bogus threat would pose.

“Whenever I had sent this letter, I had never thought there was going to be police advised,” Olson told Senior U.S. District Judge William Standish.

Olson also was sentenced to five years on probation, the first five months of which he’ll be confined to his home.

Because Olson has no criminal record and was sentenced under the old guidelines, he faced up to six months in prison. However, because the threats charge is in the most serious felony category possible under federal law – the maximum sentence is life in prison – by law, Standish couldn’t just sentence him to straight probation, hence the one-day sentence.

The judge agreed with Olson’s public defender, Crystina Kowalczyk, who said her client’s primary punishment will be trying to overcome the felony conviction on his record. Olson pleaded guilty in September, lost his job at Wal-Mart because of the charge, has been medicated for depression and attempted suicide last fall, she said. Olson also has been confined to his home for the past nine months on unrelated child sex charges.

“His cry for attention has resulted in much worse and much more than he ever thought it would achieve,” Kowalczyk said. “It has just bottomed out his life.”

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