Las Vegas man arrested in ricin possession case

LAS VEGAS – A loner who long had struggled financially, Roger Bergendorff told investigators that he found making ricin an “exotic idea.”

So he researched the deadly toxin online. He bought “The Anarchists Cookbook.” He ordered castor beans – ricin comes from the processed beans’ waste – apparently posing as a fictitious customer: “Roger’s Patio and Garden.”

He donned a mask and gloves, mashed the beans, dried out the oil and stored the light-colored powder in a polypropylene container.

According to a six-page federal complaint released Wednesday, Bergendorff fell ill while keeping a “crude” form of the poison at the Extended Stay America in Las Vegas, where he lived with his cats and German shepherd.

After Bergendorff was hospitalized in February with symptoms of congestive heart failure, authorities searched Room 3700 and found syringes, a beaker, beans, a weapons cache and four grams of ricin.

Bergendorff was arrested Wednesday upon his release from the hospital where he had been treated since Feb. 14.

He faces three federal charges – possession of a biological toxin and two weapons counts – that could send him to prison for up to 30 years.

Magistrate Judge Peggy A. Leen ruled Wednesday that Bergendorff, 57, will remain in federal custody; his case is expected to go before a grand jury in the next few days.

Bergendorff appeared in court in a wheelchair. A hefty man with graying hair, Bergendorff mostly stared at the ground, chin in hand, his brow furrowed.

His public defender asked that Bergendorff – who suffers from depression and anxiety and has no criminal record – be supervised in a halfway house and have his mental health evaluated.

“I’m not a criminal. I’m not a robber, I’m not a thief, I’m not a rapist, I’m not a child molester. … It’s not in my blood,” Bergendorff told the judge.

Bergendorff, a graphic artist, had no apparent link to terrorism, and there has been no indication of a broader plot or co-conspirators, said Gregory A. Brower, the U.S. attorney for Nevada.

Bergendorff told authorities he had made the lethal powder while living in three states – including California – for little reason other than “he experimented with lots of things, even counterfeiting.”

He thought about using it to harm people who angered him, he told investigators, but never carried out such plans.

Ricin – whose only legal use is for cancer research – can cause vomiting, diarrhea, fluid in the lungs and respiratory or organ failure, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The toxin’s cloak-and-dagger reputation stems in part from the death of a Bulgarian writer who was stabbed in the 1970s with an umbrella that injected the poison.

Bergendorff spent much of his life in California, where former neighbors have described him as standoffish and troubled.

He told investigators that he first made ricin in the late 1990s while living in San Diego. In 2002, while living in Reno, Bergendorff purchased castor beans through the mail from a Michigan company, authorities said.

Bergendorff made a crude form of ricin in Reno and possibly in Riverton, Utah, he told authorities. He was “basically indigent” when he moved to the Salt Lake City suburb in early 2005, his cousin Thomas Tholen said.

Bergendorff lived in Tholen’s unfinished basement and earned money delivering pizzas.

Bergendorff allegedly told Tholen that ricin would be easy to make.

According to court documents, he once showed his cousin a vial or beaker containing powder that Tholen thought was the toxin.

Tholen, a 54-year-old retired art teacher, was indicted this month in Salt Lake City for allegedly failing to tell authorities about the toxin.

Bergendorff moved out in spring 2006 and bounced around until ending up at the Extended Stay America.

Authorities were first called to his room on Feb. 26. There they found two .25-caliber semiautomatic pistols, a .22-caliber Ruger rifle, a .22-caliber Browning pistol and two silencers that Bergendorff said he made “for fun,” according to court papers.

They also discovered “The Anarchists Cookbook,” with a page about ricin marked.