A history professor at Idaho State University has been charged in a federal grand-jury indictment with mailing an envelope that he claimed contained hantavirus to a federal bankruptcy trustee, according to an article in the Deseret Morning News.

Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Joint Terrorism Task Force arrested the professor, Thomas F. Hale, at Salt Lake City International Airport.

Mr. Hale is accused of trying to hide assets in a bankruptcy case by understating the value of a home that he owns in Salt Lake City. The federal indictment states that Mr. Hale sent the bankruptcy trustee an envelope that the professor claimed contained hantavirus, a deadly disease from rodents. Tests found no evidence of the virus.

Mr. Hale pleaded not guilty. His trial date was set for March 5, and he could face up to 20 years in prison.

This is not Mr. Hale’s first appearance in The Chronicle. In 1992, he took a leave of absence from Idaho State to teach at Northern Kentucky University, where he accepted tenure. The next year he took an unpaid personal leave from his new job and returned to Idaho State. Northern Kentucky then learned that Mr. Hale had kept his tenure at Idaho State, and fired him.