NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- A federal grand jury today indicted Edward Richardson on two counts of threatening the life of President Reagan.
U.S. Atty. Richard Blumenthal said the first count returned by the U.S. District Court jury stemmed from a letter Richardson allegedly wrote to actress Jodie Foster and left in her dormitory room at Yale University.
Richardson, 22, of Drexel Hill, Pa., was arrested Tuesday with a loaded handgun in the Port Authority bus terminal in Manhattan on a Philadelphia-bound bus.
He had taken a bus to New York from New Haven after staying at the Sheraton Park Plaza hotel, the same place where John W. Hinckley, accused in the assassination attempt on President Reagan last week, had stayed in a futile attempt to contact Miss Foster at Yale.
The second charge, Blumenthal said, stemmed from another letter Richardson allegedly wrote and left in his New Haven hotel room, stating he was leaving for Washington, D.C. 'to bring to completion Hinckley's reality.'
Richardson was held on $500,000 bond in the New York Metropolitan Correctional Center.
Blumenthal said despite Richardson's references to Hinckley and the 'apparent similarities in the alleged actions or backgrounds' of the two 'there is no evidence at this time that they were acting in concert or as part of any scheme or conspiracy.'
'Nor is there any indication of a meeting or other relationship between them,' Blumenthal said. 'As to this aspect of the matter and others our investigation is continuing.'
The prosecutor said Richardson would undergo psychiatric examination to determine if he is competent to stand trial and said a hearing to return Richardson to New Haven to face the charges has been scheduled for April 17.
Each count of the indictiment carries a maximum potential of a $1,000 fine and-or five years in prison.
The handwritten letter, signed with the letter 'A' surrounded by a circle, was delivered Monday afternoon to Miss Foster's temporary residence, a house on the Yale University campus.
Authorities have said it was sent by Edward Richardson, the 22-year-old Pennsylvania man arrested Tuesday in New York City and charged with threatening the president's life.
'Why do you seek to humiliate us?' the sources quoted the letter to Miss Foster as saying. 'Hinckley was only the beginning. Our dual realities merged into a single vision.'
The letter also said, the sources reported: 'You will be 'getting out' very shortly. Dammit, you know who I am? You know I am the one doing all these killings?'
Miss Foster has appeared in a student production of a play entitled 'Getting Out.'
The sources said the letter was found in a pile of mail in the house of the man who runs Miss Foster's residential college.
Authorities said Wednesday they are investigating similarities between another letter allegedly written by Richardson and an anonymous message mailed to a Baton Rouge, La., magazine.
The anonymous letter -- mailed March 25 from Grand Junction, Colo., and received March 30 by 'The Evangelist' magazine -- contained wording almost identical to that of one allegedly written by Richardson, sources said.
Secret Service agents arrested Richardson after two letters were found in his New Haven hotel room.
One letter promised to complete the work started by John Hinckley, charged with shooting Reagan March 30 in Washington.
Richardson had a loaded .32-caliber revolver when he was arrested.
Hinckley, 25, was in Colorado the day the anonymous letter was sent from Grand Junction.
A federal law enforcement source said Wednesday that investigators are aware of the similarities between the Colorado letter and the letter found in Richardson's hotel room. 'An active investigation is being conducted,' the source said.
In Philadelphia, Joseph Moore Jr., an attorney for Richardson's parents, said today that Richardson has said his link to Hinckley is 'cosmic only.'
Richardson, 22, of Drexel Hill, Pa., is charged with threatening Reagan's life in the letter that promised to complete the work started by John Hinckley, 25, who is accused of shooting Reagan in Washington March 30.
David Hail, a spokesman for the Rev. Jimmy Swaggart, who owns 'The Evangelist,' said the unsigned letter received by the magazine March 30 said, 'Ronald Reagan will be shot to death and the country will turn to the left.'
In the other letter, recovered Tuesday from Richardson's hotel room in New Haven, Conn., the unemployed laborer is accused of writing, 'Ultimately, Ronald Reagan will be shot to death and this country turned to the 'left.''
A federal law enforcement source said Wednesday that investigators were aware of the similarities between the letters and 'an active investigation is being conducted.'
Both Hinckley and Richardson were in Lakewood, Colo., a suburb of Denver, in early March but the Secret Service said no evidence of any links between the two had turned up.
'We have not been able to establish anything that shows any connection between those two,' said Special Agent James S. Griffiths, head of the Denver office. He added that it had not been officially established if their visits overlapped.
Authorities said Richardson had stayed at a Lakewood apartment with his two sisters from mid-December until early March.
Hinckley stayed in the Golden Hours motel in Lakewood from March 8 until March 23, and then returned to his family's home in Evergreen, Colo.
Authorities say Hinckley flew out of Denver March 25, the day the Colorado letter was sent, to begin a cross-country odyssey that ended with the shooting in Washington.
Grand Junction, where the 'Evangelist' threat was mailed, is halfway across the state from Denver.
Richardson's lawyer, J. Edward Meyer said that his client was at his parents' home in Drexel Hill 'for the week ending March 30' when Reagan was shot.
Agents investigating the Richardson case said Wednesday the publicity over Hinckley's and Richardson's plans could inspire a series of disturbed people to mount 'copycat' assassination attempts.
'Incidents like this have almost a snowball effect,' said one agent. 'More and more people read about it and it gives people ideas.'
Richardson, who is being held on $500,000 bail in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan, appeared at a brief hearing Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan and an order was signed allowing the suspect to be examined by a psychiatrist.
Asked by Judge David Edelstein if he had anything to say, Richardson stood and replied hesitantly, 'I just -- ask the court to bear with me and try to understand what I am and what I believe.'
The psychiatrist will try to determine whether Richardson is criminally responsible for threatening the life of a president, whether he understands that act and whether he can help in his own defense.
He allegedly wrote one letter saying that Hinckley had appeared to him in a 'prophetic dream' and urged him to kill Reagan.
