{"id":446624,"date":"2026-09-24T20:58:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T20:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/446624\/"},"modified":"2026-09-24T20:58:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T20:58:11","slug":"man-sentenced-for-mailing-fake-biological-weapons-to-fort-worth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/446624\/","title":{"rendered":"Man sentenced for mailing fake biological weapons to Fort Worth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A 67-year-old Dallas man was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/news\/courts\/?utm_source=paid_marketing&amp;utm_medium=google_dsa&amp;utm_campaign=content_acquisition&amp;gad_source=1&amp;gad_campaignid=23423742462&amp;gbraid=0AAAAADjVYgE8cwlALl8H2xXFeQCbQBC1b&amp;gclid=Cj0KCQjwlNPVBhCMARIsAPZ5RqjrjlygSkNMA8_3JF8eEnFoklafLtkyK36_SCEFItNv0HdEALtcPRMaAjIIEALw_wcB\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">sentenced to more than 17 years<\/a> in prison Wednesday for mailing letters filled with fake biological weapons to federal courthouses and officials while he was already incarcerated.<\/p>\n<p>Donald Ray McCray\u2019s sentence was imposed after his April 15, 2026, conviction for three counts of mailing threatening communications and one count of hoax weapons of mass destruction, according to a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/usao-ndtx\/pr\/dallas-man-sentenced-210-months-federal-prison-mailing-threats-federal-judges-and-hoax\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">news release<\/a> from the United States Attorney\u2019s Office for the Northern District of Texas.<\/p>\n<p>While in a Texas state prison, McCray sent letters containing white powder to U.S. district judges in Fort Worth and New York and a U.S. courthouse in Amarillo, court documents show.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The filings allege McCray did so \u201cwith conscious disregard of a substantial risk\u201d that his letters would be seen as threatening and the intent to \u201cconvey false and misleading information that the envelope(s) contained a biological agent.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>McCray also threatened to kill state and federal officials in his letters, and after his June 2025 indictment, he made further threats during one of his federal court hearings.<\/p>\n<p>The Federal Bureau of Investigation\u2019s Dallas Field Office and U.S. Marshals Service investigated with help from the U.S. Postal Inspection\u00a0Service, Fort Worth police and fire officials, Texas Tech University\u2019s Biological Threat Research Laboratory, and others.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThreats against federal and state government employees are serious crimes that undermine our system of government,\u201d FBI Dallas Special Agent in Charge Joseph Rothrock said in the release. \u201cNo public servant should be forced to confront this kind of intimidation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Dallas Morning News contacted the U.S. Attorney&#8217;s Office for the Northern District of Texas via email Thursday for clarification on what the white powder was but didn\u2019t immediately hear back. The News also didn&#8217;t immediately hear\u00a0back from McCray\u2019s defense attorney via email.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 67-year-old Dallas man was sentenced to more than 17 years in prison Wednesday for mailing letters filled&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":446625,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[732,116,118,117,95603,88032,88643,89217],"class_list":["post-446624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-article","tag-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth-headlines","tag-fort-worth-news","tag-news-crime","tag-tp-dallas-fortworth","tag-tp-fort-worth","tag-tp-tarrant-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/446625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}