[bloodrayne]

Man Charged In Schiavo Bounty Plot

Fairview, North Carolina — A man accused of placing a bounty on the head of Michael Schiavo and on a judge who recently denied a request to reinsert Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube was arrested Friday in Buncombe County.

Richard Alan Meywes of Fairview was charged in a federal complaint in the Middle District of Florida, according to a news release from the FBI in Tampa, Fla. He is charged with murder for hire and the transmission of interstate threatening communications.

No one answered the door at Meywes’ large rustic home with wooden siding at 18 Mission St. in Fairview on Friday evening. On the door a sticker read “FDNY (Fire Department of New York City) remembered.”

Meywes is registered as an unaffiliated voter in Buncombe County whose voting record goes back to the 1992 general election, according to the N.C. State Board of Elections Web site.

He has written letters to the editor at the Asheville Citizen-Times, the most recent on March 14, in which he talked about his distaste for some local media coverage.

The day after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Meywes weighed in with a letter about his sorrow over the terrorism:

“I woke up this morning after working 28 hours over the last two days to be completely shocked over the news of terrorists attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. This was a very cowardly act against the United States and Americans in general. The U.S. has suffered tremendously in loss of life, our sense of security, and the freedoms we enjoy today because of the military veterans who have fought in battles past to solidify that America truly is the land of the free.”

The FBI and the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Department arrested Meywes Friday at his residence in Fairview, said Sara Oates, public information officer for the FBI in Tampa. He was taken into custody without incident, according to the release.

Oates said Meywes would have his first federal court appearance in Asheville on Monday. He was being held in the Buncombe County Detention Center on Friday night. The detention center sometimes houses federal inmates. If convicted of both crimes, Meywes faces up to 15 years in prison and fines of up to $500,000, according to the Office of the U.S. Attorney Middle District of Florida.

On Wednesday, the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Department in Florida forwarded an e-mail to the FBI in Tampa. In the e-mail, a $250,000 bounty was placed on the “head of Michael Schiavo.” The e-mail also placed a bounty of $50,000 on the judge who recently denied a request to intervene in the case of Terri Schiavo, a 41-year-old woman whose parents say is reaching her final hours after her feeding tube was removed at the request of her husband on March 18.

The e-mail also made reference to the recent death of a judge in Atlanta and the murder of a judge’s family members in Illinois, according to the news release. Oates declined to elaborate or explain the context of the references to the judges.

Oates said Meywes sent the e-mail from North Carolina, but she didn’t know whether it was sent from his home. She said the e-mail was sent to media outlets in Florida. Oates declined to comment on whether anyone had made plans to harm Michael Schiavo, but added that the FBI takes threats seriously.

“We take any threat of murder over the Internet seriously,” she said. “It doesn’t matter who they are threatening. We take it seriously.”

Gretchen Shappert, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina, credited the success of the investigation to cooperation between federal and local law enforcement in North Carolina and Florida.

“Threats made in interstate commerce will not be ignored by federal law enforcement,” she said.

Meywes’ arrest was the result of a joint investigation by the Tampa and Charlotte offices of the FBI, the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Department and the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Department, according to the release.