Valdez & Ricin

Now that “Ricin” is in the news again, with attempts by the disgruntled community to cause harm upon the Pony Express with this toxin made from ordinary castor beans hidden inside an envelope plastered with a 46-cent stamp, a review of the disgruntled that once enjoyed Alaska as a home is appropriate. In April of 1993, Thomas Lewis Lavy was driving away from Alaska to his new home in Arkansas. At the Canadian Customs’ border crossing, Lavy declared the guns along with the ammunition, his hard-earned U.S. currency and a plastic bag containing 130 grams of ricin - a deadly powder and considered a WMD. Nothing really unusual for an Alaskan on the road, the guns & roses, ammo and money! According to U.S. officials, Lavy told the Canadians that the bag contained a deadly poison, ricin – which is legal in Canada for protecting a farmer’s livestock from predators. Lavy advised that he intended to use the poison to kill coyotes at his farm in Arkansas. A very credible explanation, even though the amount Lavy declared had the capacity of killing the entire North American coyote population and if released to the public, a lethal dose that could cripple the health and well-being of 70000 humans! Nothing further was done about the ricin concern, except the Canadian Customs were required to alert the U.S. Customs - about the cash and mentioned also the “ricin”. Then so far forgotten about, in the spring of 1995 law enforcement officials began to take a serious interest and opened up a case at the FBI’s Anchorage field office. Based on current law, a federal grand jury in Anchorage indicted Lavy for violating the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989. Following the indictment, law enforcement agents arrested Lavy at his farm in Arkansas. According to one official, “the investigation found no identifiable link with any terrorist group and Lavy had no poison in his possession at the time of his arrest”. And the law was solid, life in prison without parole for violating the “Act”. Having declared the “ricin” at the border, it was enough evidence to put Lavy behind bars. This was a “One Strike” law! Within months of his incarceration in the Pulaski County Jail in Little Rock, Arkansas, Lavy committed a suicide hanging. Accordingly, the government presented no evidence that Lavy had any intent to use the ricin, accept for his so-called coyote control.  Sad case? I knew Lavy, when he first came to Valdez in the 80’s, as an electrician for the Alyeska Pipeline Service Company. He was a church going man, a well-respected family man about town – a small oil town little known about until the EXXON Valdez hit “hard aground” in 1989. By trade, he was an electrician you could depend upon – until! See, Lavy was electrocuted. Yes, doing his job for the pipeline “Giant” but not realizing that another electrician had set-up a death trap. While high on a ladder, Lavy was stuck while high-voltage electricity was about to make him unconscious, so he made the life-saving decision - by kicking out. It meant saving his own life, but with that he suffered a broken back and many other serious and long term disabling injuries. He had that one last clear chance to survive the shock treatment, no matter what the consequences. Hey accidents happen. But it was the aftermath of this accident that may have sent Lavy over the edge of rational thinking wherein he was plotting his own “Armageddon”, in disrespect for authority. Alyeska was responsible for the accident! But past performance indicated that the management “mindset” was to cover the you-know-what! We learned that in the Ray Marcy case, wherein the evidence of a mal-functioning crane was mysteriously tampered with. That’s another story. In Lavy’s case, right off the bat the Alyeska management started a counter-attack against Lavy, as it was self-inflicted negligence that a good “corporate” lawyer wants as evidence. Instead of terminating the electrician that left the booby-trap, Lavy was blamed for his own disabilities, that the accident could have been avoided had Lavy re-checked things before his work began! This was how the law abiding corporate company does business, place blame on the weak, the vulnerable. It was all downhill from then on, as when “management” stabs you in the back, it goes for the “kill”! Lavy would never be able to perform like he wanted, crippled and then pacified by a “Trust Us” management that continued to hide under the cover of blame the true perpetrator this crime. Sure it was a crime, especially when a corporation finds more interest in protecting the bottom line then the workers’ line. This was the scenario wherein a good electrician was asked to perform a job, went about his job without concern as that is what’s expected and gets almost killed. And instead of the “corporation” coming to the aid, it takes the other side. This was a time when “Corporate America” was on the change, and today we see where that has taken us. And Lavy is dead, yet the “corporation” learns from wins like this to win away even more – workers’ rights under siege by a poison no different than a terrorist act using “ricin”, as we are just a fodder, nothing more! Disgruntled, you form your own opinion about Lavy!