FBI Arrests DuPage Man for Threatening Mailings to Illinois Congress Members

Federal agents arrested Matthew Unglesbee on Sunday morning at his mother’s home in Quincy, Illinois.

The 37-year-old man faces his first federal charges for sending threatening letters to four members of Congress from the state of Illinois.

The investigation began last Wednesday after Rep. Brad Schneider, D-10th District, spoke with NBC Chicago.

Schneider’s office received an envelope with a return address in Quincy and a postmark from Springfield.

“We saw the letter in the pile of mail. In our mailbox, we shut the mailbox,” Schneider said.

His staff closed the mailbox and called police after noticing the sender’s name and hometown on the package.

The envelope contained a threat and a white powder that looked like anthrax.

A two-count criminal complaint filed on Monday details Unglesbee’s statements to the FBI.

He admitted to copying similar mailings sent recently to politicians across the country.

Unglesbee told agents he used table salt because he believed it would frighten recipients.

Federal agents said he described the letters and powder as a joke.

However, he acknowledged that congressional staff would likely find the gesture alarming rather than humorous. Court records show Unglesbee has a history of criminal offenses dating back to 2009. He was previously convicted of threatening a public official, impersonating police, and sexually assaulting a minor. Those convictions placed him on the state’s sex offender registry, a status he often discussed on social media. Videos posted to his mother’s Facebook page show him talking about weather, daylight saving time, and politics until the day before his arrest. In one clip, Unglesbee urged viewers to vote for Democrats to flip the House and Senate. “Let's flip the House and the Senate Democrat,” he said in the video. “Make sure you vote in every single state where you're a Democrat, so you can flip the House, and we can get all of Trump's policies changed.” His current charges include mailing threatening communication and disseminating false information and hoaxes. The FBI moved against the Quincy house where Unglesbee was sleeping when officers arrived.