Man Who Sent Ricin-Poison Letter to Obama Also Fondled 3 Young Girls
Last week, a Mississippi man finally pled guilty to mailing President Obama a ricin-laden letter and trying to frame an Elvis impersonator for the crime. Tuesday, he settled other legal business: confessing that he inappropriately touched little girls at his karate studio, Tupelo Taekwondo Plus.
James Everett Dutschke pleaded guilty in a Lee County, Mississippi, court Tuesday to three counts of fondling his young pupils, including a seven-year-old, according to an AP report. It was a relatively smart move on his part; having pled out to a 25-year term for his bizarre poison-letter campaign last week, his attorney arranged for him to serve a concurrent 20-year sentence on the molestation charges.
That might be the first savvy thing Dutschke's done in years; the onetime Mensa member spent his past few years trying to get bizarre revenge on a personal rival—Kevin Curtis, an Elvis impersonator who once enlisted Dutschke to write about Curtis' experience working in a hospital that he claims practiced organ-harvesting.
The two apparently had a bitter falling-out after Curtis posted what Dutschke claimed was a fake Mensa membership certificate to his website. That ultimately led to Dutschke sending ricin letters to Obama, Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), and a state judge, and pinning the crime on the admittedly weird Curtis.
Ultimately, however, the truth won out in both that and the molestation cases, in no small part because of Dutschke's sheer douchiness. It certainly sounds unlikely he'll experience any sense of repentance in the next two and a half decades. As a prosecutor told the New York Times of Dutschke last April: "When he made his first court appearance earlier this year on charges that he had groped three under-age girls he signed his appearance papers with a smiley face."
