Toxic material found in Vegas hotel room

LAS VEGAS, Feb. 29 (UPI) -- A man who has been hospitalized in Las Vegas in critical condition since Feb. 14 had the deadly poison ricin in his hotel room, police said Friday.

Kathy Suey, deputy chief of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, said the man is suffering from respiratory distress.

Suey told CNN the ricin was discovered when someone showed up to remove the man's things from his room at an Extended Stay America hotel. Ricin, which is produced from castor bean residue, is so toxic, just 500 micrograms -- about the side of a pinhead -- is deadly. It has some medical uses such as killing cancer cells and in bone marrow transplants.

KLAS-TV, Las Vegas, said the FBI was treating the investigation as a criminal case and neither foul play nor terrorism was suspected.

"We don't know who (the ricin) belongs to or why it would be here at this time," said police Capt. Joe Lombardo of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.

The man, saying the material wasn't his, took the toxic substance to the hotel manager's office and the manager called authorities, Lombardo said.

The man and three hotel employees were taken to a hospital as a precaution, Lombardo said. The hotel was evacuated.