Update: Federal prosecutors have dropped charges against a Mississippi man accused of mailing ricin-tainted letters to President Obama and two public officials, the Wall Street Journal reported this evening.
Paul Kevin Curtis was let out of jail on bond Tuesday because there was apparently no physical evidence against him, ABC News reported earlier.
Police searched Curtis' home and car but couldn't find a trace of the poison, nor could they find a food processor or blender necessary to make the ricin.
The 45-year-old was released Tuesday after three days of testimony arguing for his release on bond. He was charged with threatening the president, and his release on bond sent a signal the charges would be dropped.
If the court believed he was a threat, though, it probably wouldn't have let him out on bond.
"The big part that we took from the testimony is that thorough and complete searches were done of Mr. Curtis's residence, his former wife's residence, as well as his vehicle — the vehicle he was driving at the time of the stop — and there was nothing found on anything that linked him to these crimes," Curtis' attorney, Christi McCoy, said, according to an ABC affiliate.
Now that he's been released, Curtis is renouncing Facebook and the Internet because he believes his online activism got him into trouble in the first place, the ABC affiliate reported.
Curtis has a reputation for ranting online and emailing high-profile figures, the Mississippi Clarion Ledger reported.
The ricin-tainted letter mailed to Obama, a Mississippi justice of the peace, and a Republican Senator in Missisippi came during a surreal week when the United States was dealing the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing.
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