Workers report feeling ill after handling letter addressed to mayor

Princeton Borough’s Deputy Clerk Delores Williams suffered an allergic reaction on her fingers after opening an envelope addressed to the mayor’s office Tuesday morning, police reported, setting off a hazardous materials emergency at Borough Hall.

Ms. Williams notified her supervisor in the Clerk’s Office, who also suffered an allergic reaction when she came into contact with the package, officials said during a press conference about 1 p.m. today.

Police were notified and others persons in the building who were exposed to the letter, including some that demonstrated less severe allergic symptoms were quarantined in Borough Hall, but no one was taken to the hospital, officials said.

About 20 more people who had been in Borough Hall were evacuated at about 11:20 a.m. and were directed to the front steps and landing of the building and were surrounded by yellow caution tape. Borough Police Chief Anthony Federico urged members of the public to stay away from Borough Hall, saying that some of the quarantined people had suffered a burning sensation in their mouths.

Officials who responded to the scene, including Trenton Fire Department Rescue 1’s Hazardous Materials unit, determined that the envelope contained no biohazardous material Wednesday afternoon, said Lt. David Dudeck.

The envelope, which came through conventional mail, was sent by an elderly man living in a nursing home in Louisiana in need of a medication for a brain condition, Lt. Dudeck said.

The man had originally attempted to send a letter enclosed in the envelope to a company in Princeton, but that letter was returned to him after it could not be received by the company, Lt. Dudeck said. The man then wrote a letter to the mayor expressing his need for the medication and enclosed the original letter in the envelope addressed to the mayor’s office.

Authorities would not disclose the man’s name.