In mid-February, Stanford Law School Professor Michele Dauber received an envelope filled with a suspicious white powder, along with a threatening note that read, “Since you are going to disrobe Persky, I am going to treat you like ‘Emily Doe.’ Let’s see what kind of sentencing I get for being a rich white male.” As a result, part of the Neukom building at Stanford was immediately closed while a hazardous materials team investigated the substance to make sure it didn’t pose a safety threat to anyone at the law school.
Dauber is the chairwoman of the Recall Persky Campaign, an effort that successfully got Judge Aaron Persky’s voter recall on the ballot this June. Persky is the California jurist who sentenced former Stanford swimmer Brock Turner, a convicted rapist, to just six months in jail. Emily Doe is the woman who Turner raped, and Dauber reported that this was not the first time she’d received a rape threat based on her efforts to recall Judge Persky.
Less than a month later, the FBI has made an arrest. The Recorder has the details:
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According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts, 24-year-old Daniel Frisiello, of Beverly, Massachusetts, sent threatening letters with suspicious powder to five people, including Dauber. Among Frisiello’s other alleged targets is Donald Trump Jr., whose wife opened the letter containing powder. (That letter called Trump an “awful person” and said, “You make the family idiot, Eric, look smart.)
“Beyond terrifying the victims, these incidents caused law enforcement agencies around the country to spend time and money deploying emergency response units,” said U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling in an announcement of the arrest.
Frisiello, who also sent Dauber a glitter bomb, was arrested late last week and charged with five counts of mailing a threat to injure the person of another and five counts of false information and hoaxes. He has a preliminary detention hearing today.
Dauber has remained strong throughout the ordeal. “Our campaign is not going to be intimidated by threats and personal attacks,” she said. “We are going to continue to stand with survivors of sexual assault and on June 5, the voters will recall Judge Persky.” We hope she doesn’t have to deal with others like Frisiello before then.
Man Arrested for Mailing Powder to Stanford Law Prof, Trump Jr. [The Recorder]
Earlier: ‘Not The First Time I Have Received A Rape Threat’: Stanford Law Prof Targeted Speaks Out
Investigation At Stanford Law Ongoing After Professor Receives Suspicious White Substance
Staci Zaretsky has been an editor at Above the Law since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.