Sharpton, Olbermann, Fox reporter targets of white powder con

The FBI recently contacted the Rev. Al Sharpton's National Action Network, the New York Daily News, and several other groups to let them know they might be receiving letters containing a suspicious but harmless white powder.

The FBI itself had received the first of the letters at its Albany office on Monday and were easily able to identify the sender as an inmate in a New York prison because he included his inmate number in the return address. FBI officials then warned other potential recipients as a precautionary measure.

According to the Daily News, the list included "MSNBC commentator Keith Olbermann, Fox 5 reporter Mary Garofalo, CBS' '60 Minutes,' the Brooklyn Daily Eagle newspaper, the Post Star newspaper in Glens Falls, the New York State Bar Association, Brooklyn state Sen. Velmanette Montgomery, the Prisoners Rights Project of the Legal Aid Society in Albany and the Center for Law and Justice Inc. in Albany."

However, there was no explanation as to why the jailed robber selected those particular targets or how the powder-packed letters were able to slip past prison authorities.

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Sharpton_get_threatening_mail_with_suspicious_1123.html

this line alone says it all:

"The FBI itself had received the first of the letters at its Albany office on Monday and were easily able to identify the sender as an inmate in a New York prison because he included his inmate number in the return address".


Of course he included his inmate number, it's fucking required. And with that said, so are searches of outgoing and incoming mail REQUIRED. These letters would have never made it past the screening room...

Fucking FBI lying again... Sharpton and the rest should avoid all incoming mail, Period.. Hire a Republican to open that shit for you!

I thought jail sand prisons screened/opened outgoing mail

The screeners will seal it after they look at it. This applies to anything other than official legal mail.

Or is it that you are full of shit?

Only reason he'd stay silent is because it was for real and he didn't want to hinder an investigation, as when he REALLY got white powder from someone who was NOT incarcerated and whom the FBI needed to track down. But yeah...how on earth would an incarcerated person be able to get mail like that past inspection before it went out?

on edit: Here's an interesting comment from someone posting to the Raw Story site:

The envelope is marked "Legal Mail", the inmate, Keith Lettley, probably worked in the law library in his prison, legal mail is supposed to be privileged, that's how it got out...The only upshot is there is no way he could ever get hold of anything like anthrax, so a hoax is about all he can get away with, and as you see, he cant really even get away with that. At least it's a rather harmless (if expensive) self correcting problem.