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Press Release

South Windham Man Convicted of Mailing Cyanide Resulting in Death, Fraud and Witness Tampering

For Immediate Release
U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Maine

Contact: Halsey B. Frank
Assistant United States Attorney
Tel: (207) 780-3257

Bangor Maine:  United States Attorney Thomas E. Delahanty II announced that Sidney P. Kilmartin, 54, of South Windham, Maine, was convicted yesterday following a six-day jury trial in U.S. District Court of mailing injurious articles (cyanide) resulting in death, wire fraud, mail fraud and witness tampering.  He was found not guilty of witness retaliation.  On December 9, 2015, he was charged with those crimes in a superseding indictment. On October 3, 2015, he pled guilty to related wire and mail fraud charges.

According to court documents, in September 2012, the defendant acquired potassium cyanide and thereafter offered to sell it on a website devoted to suicidal persons. Between September of 2012 and May 2013, he communicated by email with people around the world offering the cyanide, and accepting payments for it through PayPal. To some of those victims, he sent Epsom salts instead of cyanide. When one victim he sent Epsom salts to in England did not die after the victim ingested them, the victim complained to the defendant and law enforcement authorities.  Thereafter, the defendant sent him real cyanide that resulted in his death.

Kilmartin faces up to life in prison and a $250,000 fine on the mailing cyanide resulting in death charge, and up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine on the remaining charges. He will be sentenced after the completion of a presentence investigation report by the U.S. Probation Office.

The investigation was conducted by U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the Humberside Police Force (City of Hull, England).

Updated October 12, 2016

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