Today’s front page of The Post: Alleged ricin-mailer Shannon Rogers Guess poses with “The Vampire Diaries” star Ian Sommerhalder. (
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SMOKING GUN:Shannon Rogers Guess is put in a sheriff’s car yesterday after appearing in court on charges she mailed out ricin letters. (AP)
Shannon Rogers Guess, aka Shannon Richardson, is seen in her booking photo. (Reuters)
COMING BACK TO BITE HER: “Vampire Diaries” actress Shannon Rogers Guess, with her children last Saturday, tried to convince investigators her husband was the ricin-missive mastermind, but she allegedly was behind the dastardly poison plot. (
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The “Vampire Diaries” and “Walking Dead” actress who ratted out her husband to the feds for allegedly mailing ricin-laced letters to Mayor Bloomberg and President Obama was lying — and sent the poison herself, authorities charged yesterday.
Shannon Rogers Guess confessed to mailing the envelopes, but claimed her Army-vet husband typed the psychotic screeds and forced her to post them to the politicians, court documents say.
A computer drive containing the letter to Obama — titled “muslimbastard.docx” — was found in a box in her home, along with ricin-making materials like castor beans and syringes, according to the FBI affidavit.
Investigators searching their computers found orders for the ingredients made out to her husband, and traces of ricin were found in the home, where they lived with their four children.
A large amount of lye was in the garage of their home in New Boston, Texas.
FBI agents arrested the pregnant mother of five, who had minor roles in “The Vampire Diaries” and “The Walking Dead,” at her hotel and hauled her in front of a federal judge in Texarkana, Texas. She was then taken to a hospital for a medical evaluation, a law-enforcement source said.
“She had a really blank look on her face,” the source said.
Feds had been watching Guess and her gun-loving hubby, Nathaniel Richardson, 24 hours a day for the past week, the source added — although Richardson has not been charged.
Guess told The Post last week that she planned to dump Richardson, who told investigators she was behind the plot — but he beat her to the punch and filed divorce papers Thursday.
“I didn’t do anything,” she said last Saturday. “That’s absolutely not true.
“He’s racist and hates Obama. Everyone knows that.”
Authorities arrested Guess yesterday because the woman was “insisting” that she move back to her native Georgia and they felt they had enough evidence to make the charges stick, a law- enforcement source said.
She faces 10 years in prison if convicted of mailing a threatening letter to the president.
The national security threat became a soap opera last week when Guess called the cops on her husband, who then turned around and blamed her for the attack.
Guess claimed Richardson was trying to poison her and said she found incriminating searches on their computer, as well as a Post-It note on his desk listing addresses for Bloomberg and Obama.
She also said she found two suspicious Tupperware containers on the back porch, as well as brown beans.
That led officials to question Richardson, who was released when they couldn’t find enough evidence.
Guess underwent a polygraph test, which she failed, court documents said.
She gave a bizarre excuse for her lies, saying she had planted evidence to bolster the case against her husband because she was convinced he mailed the letters, according to the affidavit.
She said she planted castor beans near a golf cart Richardson was working on and sprinkled ricin around his tools.
But feds found no evidence to back up her claims.
“No castor beans were located on or around the golf cart, and all the tools that were swabbed by the search team returned negative for the presence of ricin,” Special Agent James Spiropoulos wrote in the affidavit.
Guess allegedly mailed three ricin-laced screeds — one to Bloomberg, one to Obama, and one to Mark Glaze, who runs Hizzoner’s anti-gun group.
“You will have to kill me and my family before you get my guns,” read the letter to Glaze and Bloomberg.
“Anyone wants to come to my house will get shot in the face. The right to bear arms is my constitutional God given right and I will excersice [sic] that right til the day I die. whats in the letter is nothing compared to what ive got planned for you.”
The three NYPD emergency services cops who came in contact with the Bloomberg letter suffered symptoms linked to ricin exposure such as diarrhea and “a strong smell to their urine,” a law-enforcement source has said.
Obama’s letter was worded in a similar manner, but contained more personal touches.
“I served in the united states army and because your muslim ass will probly never be able to retire. i will have to work until I take my last breath. I deserve better and so do my wife and kiddos. I will take care of this myslef and make sure you wont be runnin this country in the ground any further.”
The day the letters were mailed, Richardson was working a 10-hour shift repairing military vehicles and could not have left to mail the letters unnoticed.
His lawyer, John Delk, said the man “married the wrong person.”
“I don’t think that there’s a very big leap from him being innocent to him being set up. I know he didn’t do it, according to what we believe,” he told Channel 12-KSLA in Shreveport, La.
Richardson could not be reached for comment.
Additional reporting by Bruce Golding
