LAS VEGAS — A loner who long had struggled financially, Roger Bergendorff told investigators that he found making ricin an "exotic idea."
So he researched the deadly toxin online. He bought "The Anarchists Cookbook." He ordered castor bean seeds -- ricin comes from the processed beans' waste -- apparently posing as a fictitious customer: "Roger's Patio and Garden."
He donned a mask and gloves, mashed the beans with acetone, dried out the oil and stored the light-colored powder in a polypropylene container.
According to a six-page federal complaint released Wednesday, Bergendorff fell ill while keeping a "crude" form of the poison at the Extended Stay America hotel in Las Vegas, where he lived with his cats and German shepherd.
After Bergendorff was hospitalized in February with symptoms of congestive heart failure, authorities searched Room 3700 and found syringes, a beaker, beans, a weapons cache and four grams of ricin.
Bergendorff faces three federal charges -- possession of a biological toxin and two weapons counts -- that could send him to prison for up to 30 years.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Peggy A. Leen ruled Wednesday that Bergendorff, 57, will remain in federal custody; his case is expected to go before a grand jury in the next few days.
Bergendorff appeared in court in a wheelchair, wearing green pants, socks and a white T-shirt. A hefty man with graying hair, Bergendorff mostly stared at the ground, chin in hand, his brow furrowed.
His public defender asked that Bergendorff -- who suffers from depression and anxiety and has no criminal record -- be supervised in a halfway house and have his mental health evaluated.
"I'm not a criminal. I'm not a robber. I'm not a thief. I'm not a rapist. I'm not a child molester. . . . It's not in my blood," Bergendorff told the judge.
Bergendorff, a graphic artist, had no apparent link to terrorism, and there has been no indication of a broader plot or co-conspirators, said Gregory A. Brower, the U.S. attorney for Nevada.
Bergendorff told authorities he had made the lethal powder while living in three states -- including California -- for little reason other than "he experimented with a lots of things, even counterfeiting."
He thought about using it to harm people who angered him, he told investigators, but never carried out such plans.
