Illinois man charged with mailing fake anthrax powder to Chicago-area lawmakers' offices

A 37-year-old Quincy, Illinois, man was arrested and charged Monday with mailing envelopes containing a white powder to the Chicago-area offices of three members of Congress and a U.S. senator, in what federal investigators describe as a copycat scheme loosely tied to a wider wave of threatening letters that has unsettled congressional and election offices nationwide in the weeks before the midterm elections.

Matthew Unglesbee was taken into custody by FBI agents on Sunday at his mother's home in Quincy and made an initial court appearance by video Monday afternoon in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois, according to CBS News Chicago. A federal criminal complaint unsealed that day charges him with mailing threatening communications and mailing false information and hoaxes. Prosecutors are seeking to hold him without bond pending trial, and a detention hearing was set for Wednesday.

Four letters, one signature

According to the complaint, as described by NBC Chicago and ABC7 Chicago, Unglesbee mailed at least four envelopes between mid-October and Oct. 23 to the district offices of Democratic Reps. Jan Schakowsky in Skokie, Mike Quigley in Chicago and Brad Schneider in Lincolnshire, as well as to the office of Sen. Tammy Duckworth. Each envelope contained a white granular substance and a handwritten note; three read simply "HA HA," and the most recent, received Oct. 23, read "HAH enjoy the gift." A fifth, unmailed envelope addressed to another member's Washington office was recovered when agents searched his home.

Every envelope carried a handwritten return address bearing his own name and was postmarked in Springfield, Illinois. Laboratory testing found no toxic or hazardous material in any of the letters; Unglesbee told investigators the powder was ordinary table salt.

Investigators said the case began with an anonymous tip received Oct. 16 after someone reported overhearing Unglesbee discuss mailing a suspicious substance to lawmakers while at a restaurant. When FBI agents interviewed him at his mother's house, he admitted sending the letters and said, according to the complaint, that he chose salt because it resembled anthrax and that he knew recipients would likely treat it as a threat rather than a joke. He told agents he had been inspired after hearing about similar white-powder letters sent earlier in October to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, and said he was not involved in those or other mailings sent to lawmakers outside Illinois.

U.S. Attorney Gregory M. Gilmore, whose office is prosecuting the case out of the Central District of Illinois, said in a statement reported by CBS News Chicago that "the use of the mail to threaten others, including the mailing of threatening substances, will not be tolerated." The Adams County Sheriff's Office is separately holding Unglesbee on a state charge of harassment through electronic communications, and NBC 5 Investigates reported that court and state police records show prior convictions dating to 2009 for threatening a public official and impersonating a police officer, as well as a sex-offense conviction that lists him on the Illinois sex offender registry.

A wave of threats before the midterms

The Illinois case is one piece of a larger, still-unsolved pattern. The FBI, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and U.S. Capitol Police disclosed in mid-October that they were investigating a series of letters containing unknown substances mailed to congressional and state election offices across the country, a notice first sent to Senate staff by the Senate Sergeant at Arms. Lawmakers and election officials in more than two dozen states reported receiving similar mail in the days that followed, including the offices of Sen. Chuck Schumer, Sen. Susan Collins, Sen. Chris Murphy, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Rep. Pramila Jayapal and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Election offices in Louisiana and Oklahoma were briefly evacuated after opening envelopes containing powder; in each case, testing found no hazardous material. The wave began almost exactly 25 years after a Senate staffer opened a letter laced with actual anthrax in 2001, a coincidence several outlets noted at the time the current letters surfaced.

Federal officials have not said whether any of those other letters are connected to one another or to Unglesbee, and the complaint against him describes only the four Illinois envelopes plus the unmailed fifth letter. The broader nationwide investigation remains open, with no suspect identified in the mailings sent to offices outside Illinois.

For the three House members and one senator named in the Illinois complaint, the past two weeks brought repeated disruptions. Rep. Schneider's Lincolnshire office was affected twice, on Oct. 16 and again on Oct. 21, each time triggering a hazardous-materials response from local police and fire crews before the substance was cleared as harmless, according to a statement his office issued after the first letter and a second statement after the follow-up mailing. "Following protocol, we open all mail under a mail hood," Schneider said in the first statement, adding that "it is imperative" that investigators "follow all leads to apprehend and prosecute those responsible." After the second letter, he said "those responsible, once identified, must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."

Reaction from Capitol Hill

Rep. Quigley, whose office received two of the letters, told ABC7 Chicago that the intent behind the mailings was unmistakable. "When you read these, their intent is to intimidate and threaten just weeks before the midterm election," he said.

"We're in a climate where threats and intimidation like this have become normalized," Quigley said. "My office is open, accessible, ready for business, and we're not going to let anyone intimidate us."

Rep. Schakowsky, whose Skokie office received suspicious mail twice within a week, issued a statement Monday acknowledging reports that a suspect had been taken into custody and thanking the officers who responded. "I will not let threats stand in the way of serving the people of the 9th District," she said. Sen. Duckworth's office confirmed it, too, had received a letter, and Rep. Robin Kelly separately reported suspicious mail at her office during the same period, though neither is named as a complainant in the charges against Unglesbee.

The disruptions came as both parties head into the final stretch of the 2026 midterm campaign, and lawmakers from both parties have framed the mailings, whatever their ultimate source, as part of a broader rise in threats against public officials. Capitol Hill offices have for years operated under screening protocols adopted after earlier mail-based threats, including the use of mail hoods and routine referrals to Capitol Police, and those procedures were credited by several of the targeted offices with preventing any physical harm from this month's letters.

What happens next

Unglesbee's detention hearing is scheduled for Wednesday in the Central District of Illinois, where a magistrate judge will decide whether he remains in custody ahead of trial. Court filings reviewed by local outlets did not list a defense attorney as of Monday evening. Separately, the FBI-led investigation into the dozens of other suspicious letters sent to congressional and election offices in more than thirty states continues, with federal authorities saying they have not yet determined who is responsible or whether a single person or group is behind the broader campaign. Officials have urged congressional staff and election administrators to keep treating unexpected mail with caution as the investigation continues into the closing days of the midterm campaign.