Former SF political consultant and accused potential domestic terrorist Ryan Chamberlain has, as was expected last week, taken a plea deal in a case dating back to the spring of 2014 in which federal agents stormed his Russian Hill home and found what they said were the makings of a bomb and possible biological weapon. Due to a lack of evidence that Chamberlain even had the complete makings of a bomb, and what seems like a fairly successful defense on the part of his attorney, Assistant Federal Public Defender Elizabeth Falk, federal prosecutors last week indicated that they would be open to a last-minute plea bargain before a trial was set to begin.
As KRON 4 reports, "Ryan Chamberlain pleaded guilty Tuesday to one count of possession of an unregistered biological agent and one count of possessing a gun with the serial number removed. The 44-year-old former political consultant faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison."
Chamberlain's sentencing will take place on April 12, per the Chron.
This news comes almost two years since the dramatic tale of the raid, his subsequent brief disappearance, the national manhunt, his apparent suicide note, and all the weird details that followed his capture at Crissy Field in June, 2014.
Chamberlain may have been, after all, just a mentally unstable soul seeing how far he could take some "morbid fantasies" he had but who nonetheless had not yet committed any dramatic crime.
But it was a pretty scary tale that showed just how easy it was to get things like ricin and abrin on the deep-web black market, even if Chamberlain didn't necessarily have the motivation or chutzpah, necessarily, to become a terrorist himself.
