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A man from southwestern Ontario has been acquitted on charges of uttering death threats against Sophie Grégoire Trudeau and 10 female members of Parliament while he was on a VIA train earlier this year.

James Martin Platts, 57, of Chatham-Kent was arrested in Coburg on Jan. 5 after another passenger on the Ottawa to Toronto train notified VIA staff when she noticed him pacing around and allegedly heard him utter the words “kill the 10 female MPs” followed by “… and the PM’s wife” during a conversation on his cellphone.

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The witness also reported overhearing talk of anthrax and bombs.

Coburg police arrested Platts at the terminal and later charged him with two counts of uttering threats to cause death.

Police also seized a cellphone, laptop computer, six paper notebooks, and hundreds of scraps of papers filled with writing.

Witness Mary Sutherland, identified by the Northumberland News as an Ottawa English teacher, testified she was so alarmed by what she was overhearing from the man seated in front of her that she started to jot down what he was saying on a sheet of paper she had been using as a bookmark.