Texas woman who admitted sending bombs to Obama is going to prison because of her cat

A Brookshire, Texas, woman will serve 10 years in prison after pleading guilty in July to transportation of explosives with the intent to kill, injure and intimidate a person, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a news release.

Julia Ann Poff, 48, “admitted to mailing a package on or about Oct. 2-3, 2016, that contained a homemade bomb that was addressed to the former president of the United States,” the release said.

Barack Obama was not Poff’s only intended target — she also mailed bombs to Texas Governor Greg Abbott and then “Social Security Administrator Carolyn Colvin,” KHOU11 said.

Officials intercepted a package on Oct. 6, 2016, when they discovered a “U.S. Postal Service (USPS) small, flat rate box at a White House mail handling facility at Bolling Air Force Base in the District of Columbia. They opened the package, and it appeared to contain a bomb,” the release said.

The FBI sent an explosives expert who examined the box and determined there was a bomb inside the package, specifically a “victim-activated, booby trapped, improvised explosive device (IED).”

Police determined Poff was their suspect after finding cat hair consistent with the cat their family owned. Officials also found “a box contained within the USPS box contained a micro-USB cable box, cellular phone, hobby fuse, matches, paper wadding, plastic sacks, sandpaper and two 20-ounce coke bottle caps as well as pyrotechnics and smokeless powder.”

“Poff’s daughter identified the phone as her old cell phone which was last seen in their home’s garage in August or September 2016,” the release said. “Authorities also learned Poff used her bank debit card to purchase a micro-USB box with the same bar code as the one found in the USPS package.”

Officials said Poff admitted she was the sole conspirator and would “remain in custody pending transfer to a U.S. Bureau of Prisons facility to be determined in the near future.”

She was also ordered to pay $9,700 in restitution, officials said in the release.

This story was originally published November 18, 2019 at 5:33 PM with the headline "Texas woman who admitted sending bombs to Obama is going to prison because of her cat."