Add the investigation of a Spokane man accused of mailing letters laced with ricin to various government agencies to the list of casualties from the 16-day federal government shutdown last month.

Matthew Buquet, 38, has been indicted on federal charges alleging he sent mailings in May containing the castor bean-based poison to President Barack Obama and a federal judge. Subsequent letters to a post office and Fairchild Air Force Base were also discovered by the FBI, but were not mentioned in a superseding indictment in the case filed in June.

No one was harmed by the mailings. The letter sent to Obama allegedly read, "We have a bomb placed, we are going to kill you! Hezbollah," referring to the militant group formed by members of the Shiite sect of Islam.

The trial has been delayed by the recusal of U.S. District Court Judge Lonny Suko, who is a colleague of the intended target of one of the alleged mailings, as well as Buquet's request to have an expert witness examine the substance that was included in the packages. The alleged toxin is being housed at a federal government lab whose workers were the target of furloughs during last month's government shutdown, according to a filing by Buquet earlier this month.

No delays in the anticipated May 2014 trial date have yet been announced.

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