Nutty Engineer Sentenced for Threats to Bush

Sad how far some people will go while in the throes of Bush Derangement Syndrome.

An Elk Grove man with three college degrees who worked as a nuclear engineer was sentenced Friday in Sacramento federal court to four years and three months in prison for spraying the nation with threatening letters.

Michael Lee Braun pleaded guilty in April to making a threat against President Bush, providing false but scary information, perpetrating hoaxes and mailing a threat to injure Tom Sullivan, a former Sacramento radio and television personality and Bee columnist.

Over a period of 4 1/2 years, the 53-year-old Braun, who worked at the Sacramento Municipal Utility District's now-decommissioned Rancho Seco nuclear generating plant, mailed approximately 58 threatening letters, a majority of which contained a white powder that analysis proved was baking soda, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Ellen Endrizzi.

The letters targeted federal, state and local government officials, news reporters, a state court, hotels and other individuals and commercial entities, Endrizzi said.

Bush wasn't his only target.

Braun sent letters that contained threats and a white powder, which he asserted was "poison" and a "death powder" and recipients feared might contain anthrax or some other weapon of mass destruction. Laboratory analysis showed it to be baking soda. He pleaded guilty to four counts on April 11. Over the years, he sent about 58 letters, including to the Hyatt Regency Sacramento and Double Tree Hotel in Sacramento when President George W. Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney attended fund-raising events for local politicians.

According to the federal criminal complaint, investigators started watching Braun in 2001 after he was suspected of sending an unknown white powder, alleging it was some kind of toxic chemical, to a dentist's office in Sacramento where his former girlfriend worked.

Over the years, he sent letter-bomb threat letters to the president of the United States, the vice president, and the secretary of defense, prosecutors said, sending them from the Sacramento area and from San Diego and Utah. Investigators found Braun's travels coincided with the various addresses.

I blame the climate of hate fostered by the left.

In addition to being an engineer, he's also a lawyer. He went to the University of Wisconsin. That could help explain things.