The U.S. Courthouse is seen in Alexandria, Va., on Sept. 2, 2021. (Cliff Owen/AP)
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A Marine Corps veteran who pleaded guilty to making ricin after his contacts with a Virginia militia prompted a federal investigation was sentenced Wednesday to time served after the probe concluded he had no intent to harm others.
When the FBI arrested Russell Vane, 42, of Vienna, Virginia in April, authorities feared the worst: a homegrown terrorist whose interest in explosives alarmed even members of a militia group who thought Vane’s rhetoric was so extreme that he must be a government agent sent to entrap them.
Fears escalated when a search of Vane’s home found castor beans and a test tube with a white substance that tested positive for ricin. Vane also strangely took steps to legally change his name shortly before his arrest, and posted a fake online obituary.
At Wednesday’s sentencing hearing, though, prosecutors conceded that Vane was not the threat they initially feared.
“The defendant didn’t turn out to be a terrorist, or planning a mass casualty attack, or even plotting a murder. Rather, he exercised some terrible judgment, and synthesized a biotoxin out of — essentially — curiosity,” prosecutor Danya Atiyeh wrote in court papers.
The investigation found that Vane, who worked as an analyst for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency before his arrest, was troubled and isolated after the pandemic and fearful of world events like the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It prompted an interest in militias and prepper groups.
The ricin manufacture fit with a long history of of weird, ill-advised science experiments, prosecutors said, including one time when he showed neighborhood children how to make explosive black powder.
Vane told investigators the ricin was left over from an old experiment that he believed had failed — he had wanted to see if it was really possible to make the toxin from castor beans.
Exposure to ricin can be lethal, though Vane’s lawyers said the material Vane developed was far too crude to be used as any kind of biological weapon.
Even though Vane turned out not to have malicious intent, prosecutors still asked for a prison sentence of more than two years at Wednesday’s hearing, saying a significant punishment was needed “as a reminder to the general public that you’re not allowed to do this.”
But U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga opted for a sentence of time served, which included four months in solitary confinement at the Alexandria jail after his arrest. Vane also was given four months of home confinement, and ordered to pay a $5,000 fine and sell or dispose of nearly a dozen guns in his home.
Vane apologized before he was sentenced.
“I have lived in a deep state of embarrassment, regret and sorrow for my actions,” he said.
Authorities learned about Vane after members of the Virginia Kekoas militia spoke about their concerns to an internet news outlet.
And Vane’s attorney, Robert Moscati, said it was “perfectly understandable” that the government was initially alarmed by his “flirtations” with the militia: Vane had asked members who identified themselves as “Ice” and “Sasquatch” if the Kekoas were interested in manufacturing homemade explosives, according to court papers.
It turned out, though, that Vane “wasn’t Timothy McVeigh. He wasn’t the Unabomber. He wasn’t a domestic terrorist,” Moscati said Wednesday, likening the ricin production to “a failed 8th grade science project.”
