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NM man behind threats writes of 'economic warfare'

By BETSY BLANEY Associated Press Writer

Mar 26th, 2009 | LUBBOCK, Texas -- A New Mexico man who admitted sending threatening letters containing suspicious powder to dozens of banks and federal offices across the country says he did so as part of "economic warfare."

In a letter to The Associated Press, Richard Goyette wrote that he was responding to government incompetence, corruption and "illegal acts by corporate insiders" that contributed to the financial meltdown.

"I saw this as economic warfare with one side not taking any retaliatory hits," he said in the letter, which was dated March 17.

Goyette, 47, faces 15 years in prison after pleading guilty March 16 to one count of threats and false information and one count of threats and hoaxes. His sentencing could be sometime in May.

Prosecutors said he mailed 65 suspicious letters last fall from Amarillo to the banks and offices. No one was injured from exposure to the letters, all but one of which contained a powder that was found to be calcium carbonate, a major component of blackboard chalk.

Officials have said Goyette was apparently upset about losing more than $60,000 in Washington Mutual Bank stock he held when the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation took it over in late September. The next day, the FDIC sold the bank's deposits, branches and loan portfolio to JP Morgan Chase & Co. for a small fraction of their combined value.

Had he gone to trial, Goyette wrote, he wanted to subpoena federal officials, including former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, the heads of the FDIC and the Office of Thrift Supervision, and the chief executive officer of Washington Mutual.

"It was my intention to have them testify under oath, but the potential risks of obtaining a lengthy sentence versus a set sentencing range in a plea agreement will most likely result in not having a trial," his handwritten letter states. "The acts I took were the result of a culmination of events that took place over the past 5-6 years in the market."

"It has been a one sided transfer of wealth the past 4-5 years at the detriment of the average investor and pension funds."

Goyette was accused of sending some of the letters to Chase Bank locations in Colorado, Arizona, Illinois, New Jersey, Oklahoma and Ohio. He sent others to the FDIC's offices in Arlington, Va.; Washington, D.C.; and Dallas; and to thrift supervision offices in Chicago; Daly City, Calif.; Jersey City, N.J.; Irving, Texas, and Washington, D.C.

Each letter contained a threat that the person breathing the white powder inside would die within 10 days.

One letter sent to the headquarters of JPMorgan Chase in New York City contained no powder but threatened to the "McVeighing of your corporate headquarters within six months," prosecutors said. Timothy McVeigh was the domestic terrorist executed for bombing a federal building and killing 168 people in Oklahoma City in 1995.

Goyette, who years ago attended community college in Amarillo, was working for a New Mexico energy provider at the time of his Feb. 2 arrest. He remained in the Randall County Jail on Thursday.

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