A man will be charged for allegedly sending out nearly 50 threatening letters to people, including an LGBTI center.

Federal officials took Darnell Ray Owens, 32 from Sacramento, into custody on Friday (22 March).

Officials claim he mailed dozens of letters, some containing white powder, to police, churches and an LGBTI center.

Sacramento LGBTQ Community Center received two letters on 19 March 2018. Along with hate speech directed at the LGBTI community, he also threatened to ‘murder every fag or queer, lesbian, transsexuals, transgenders in Sacramento.’

He also sent fake threats to the center in June 2018 from a number of individuals. They all have family or other connections to Owens.

Owens could face up to five years in prison for each count in the complaint.

36-page complaint

After Owens was arrested in Oklahoma, officials filed a 36-page criminal complaint charging him with conducting a hoax involving biological weapons and interstate threats.

Officials say he wanted the recipients to think the white powder was a biological weapon. He also sent threatening messages to ‘white people’ to try to incite a race war, according to the letters themselves.

The last letter sent was to the Sacramento County District Attorney’s office. It contained a threat to kill the district attorney, Anne Marie Schubert.

According to the affidavit attached to the complaint, Owens wrote: ‘You have failed this city and the people.

‘So I am making a threat on your Life, I will assassinate you with a bullet to your head, you will not survive I will watch your body shake as the life in you leaves.’

The complaint says Federal officials tied Owens to the threats using DNA evidence, including evidence he used computers to send hoax threats from other people.