TRENTON – A Somerset County Jail inmate pleaded guilty today to sending letters – from the jail and in his own name – in which he demanded money and threatened to bomb buildings and send anthrax-laced letters to New Jersey offices of the FBI and Secret Service, as well as the Somerville Post office and two bank branches, U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie announced.

Donald Ray Bilby, 30, admitted that in the case of each of the five threatening letters, he demanded that $20,000 be deposited into his Somerset County Jail inmate account. Bilby then included his inmate number in the letters.

Bilby admitted that he told federal agents that he made the threats because he needed money for bail. At the time he sent the letters, Bilby was serving a state sentence for automobile theft in the Somerset County Jail in Somerville.

“Just when you think you’d seen it all, a case like Mr. Bilby’s comes along,” said Christie. “I think it’s fair to say we were not dealing with a great criminal mind here.”

Bilby pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Mary L. Cooper to one count of false information and hoaxes. He faces a statutory maximum penalty of five years in federal prison. Under the advisory U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, he faces a probable range of between 18 and 24 months in prison, though Judge Cooper has wide discretion in imposing sentence.

Bilby, who is formerly from Oklahoma and whose last New Jersey address was in Bound Brook, sent the letters on Aug. 6 and Aug. 7, 2005. He sent separate letters to the FBI office in Franklin Township, the Secret Service office in Morristown and to a Commere Bank branch in Somerville and a Valley National Bank branch in North Plainfield.

In some of his letters, Bilby threatened that he would send anthrax and/or blow up the buildings of those receiving the mailings if they did not give him $20,000.

For example, on April 6, 2005, he sent a letter to the Post Office in Somerville addressed to “Whom it may concern.” Bilby admitted that the letter demanded $20,000 be deposited into his inmate account. If the money was not forthcoming, he said a bomb would be sent there. In fact, he wrote in the letter that he had already “sent two bombs and pounds of real anthrax on Fed-Ex plane to a place.”

On April 6, he sent a letter to the FBI, demanded the same sum and threatened to send a bomb. The letter contained a piece of paper labeled “anthrax” and a white powdery substance. Bilby admitted today that he knew the powder was not anthrax when he sent it.

Bilby signed all of his letters Donald Bilby or Donald Ray Bilby and put the numbers 73144 – his inmate number – beneath his signature.

After examination, the FBI determined that the powdered substances labeled “anthrax” tested negative for bio-terrorism, chemical or radiological agents.

Bilby continues to serve his state prison sentence, now in Southwoods State Prison. A federal sentence would be served in addition to Bilby’s state sentence.

Christie credited Agents of the FBI, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Leslie G. Wiser, Jr, Special Agents of the Secret Service, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge David O’Connor; and Postal Inspectors of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, under the direction of Inspector in Charge Thomas Van de Merlen.

The government is represented by Assistant United States Attorney Camelia M. Valdes, of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Newark.

Defense Attorney:

Peter Carter, Esq., Assistant Federal Public Defender, Newark