Man, 69, accused of mailing white powder, obscene note

Article by: Star Tribune
Updated: September 8, 2010 - 7:59 PM

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A 69-year-old Twin Cities man has been charged in connection with mailing a suspicious white powder along with an obscene note to Dow Jones & Co. in response to a magazine offer he received from the company.

Richard V. Kozak, of Long Lake, was charged in an indictment unsealed Wednesday in federal court in Minneapolis with false information and hoaxes for allegedly sending the note and the powder, which turned out to be baking flour.

Soon after the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, letters containing anthrax spores were mailed to several news media offices and two U.S. senators, killing five people and infecting many others.

Since then federal agencies have investigated and charged numerous people nationwide with biological-weapon hoaxes and threats. Many of those hoaxes involve what was presented as anthrax, a white, powdery substance.

According to the indictment against Kozak:

On May 10, Kozak mailed an obscene note and white powder to a Dow Jones mail facility in Massachusetts. The mailing was in response to a magazine offer he had received from the company. His return note requested, among other things, that he be removed from the company's mailing list.

When a mail facility employee opened the note and discovered the powder, a portion of the facility was evacuated.A local hazardous-materials team was summoned to determine whether the powder posed a biological threat.

PAUL WALSH