93.9 The Eagle – The News and Talk of Columbia, MO
(Missourinet) An April trial has been scheduled in U.S. District Court in Jefferson City for a mid-Missouri man who’s accused of trying to purchase a “deadly chemical.”
44-year-old Jason William Siesser’s trial is set to begin on April 20 at the Christopher Bond U.S. Courthouse in Jefferson City. U.S. Attorney Tim Garrison announced charges against Siesser in August 2018, saying Siesser allegedly tried to purchase a highly toxic poison over the internet to use as a chemical weapon.
The U.S. Attorney’s office spokesman, Don Ledford, tells Missourinet that Siesser remains in federal custody. Siesser lived in Columbia, when he was arrested.
Garrison says federal agents became alerted to Siesser during an undercover FBI investigation. Siesser is charged in federal court with one count of attempting to possess a chemical weapon.
“There is no allegation in the charging document, that any sort of public attack was planned,” Garrison said in 2018, when the charges were announced. “Federal agents maintained safeguards from the time they were alerted to a potential threat during an undercover FBI investigation, to the controlled delivery of a safe, inert substance to the residence in Columbia.”
Federal prosecutors have not specifically said what the chemical is, except that it’s a highly toxic poison “capable of causing death in minute quantities.” The federal affidavit alleges Siesser purchased enough of the substance to be capable of killing about 300 people.
Court documents say Siesser signed for a package in August 2018, a package he allegedly believed contained the chemical he had ordered online. The court documents say Siesser acknowledged to the seller that he understood the chemical was lethal. Federal prosecutors say the package actually contained an inert substance.
The 11-page criminal complaint from federal prosecutors said that at the time of the 2018 arrest, Siesser was employed by a group home that houses juveniles under contract with the state of Missouri.
The complaint filed by prosecutors in 2018 also quoted Siesser as allegedly telling someone that he wanted to be an assassin, and wanted to kill those who have wronged him in the past.
The FBI raided Siesser’s Columbia home in 2018, and court documents say writing found inside the home “articulated heartache, anger and resentment over a breakup and a desire for the unidentified cause of the heartache to die.”
The court document quoted one of the writings as stating, in part: “But it makes me feel so strong I dream about your ending you burn up in flames. You suffocate on your own blood your soul completely drained. Right now your (sic) happy but that won’t last. My anger is coming and you won’t die fast!”
The federal affidavit says Siesser also wrote fictional stories about men trying to exact vengeance on ex-girlfriends. Court documents say that in one story, Siesser allegedly wrote about a man locking a woman in scuba gear in a submerged box so she would die when her oxygen tank was depleted.
The FBI and Columbia Police investigated the case.
