Bergendorff's cousin, Thomas Tholen, 54, of Riverton, has pleaded not guilty in federal court in Salt Lake City to one felony count of knowing about a crime but failing to report it. He is due to plea guilty Monday to a lesser felony charge in the case. His defense attorney, Greg Skordas, said he could not disclose the exact terms of the plea deal.

Federal prosecutors allege that Tholen knew Bergendorff had ricin when he lived at Tholen's home in Utah from February 2005 to May 2006. Bergendorff spent several more months living in a camper trailer owned by a Utah neighbor of Tholen's before moving to Las Vegas in September 2006.

Bergendorff said he didn't make ricin in Utah, and couldn't recall after his hospitalization if he ever distilled any while living in Reno from 2001 to 2004.

Tholen said he was trying to help a down-and-out relative when he traveled to Las Vegas and boxed items in Bergendorff's motel room when the rent ran out while Bergendorff was hospitalized.

"All the way through, that's what I've done," Tholen told the AP on Friday. "He was dying. That's what they told me. He was basically living on charity. The church had paid for his living situation. My concern was just to help everybody else.

"Every once in a while, something like this happens," Tholen added. "It backfires and kicks you in the teeth."

Tholen alerted authorities to containers with what police later said was about 4 grams of "crude" but lethal ricin powder. The discovery prompted an evacuation and decontamination process at the motel, and seven people were taken to hospitals for treatment.

Ricin has no antidote and can be lethal in amounts as small as the head of a pin. It prevents the body from synthesizing proteins and shuts down vital organs such as the liver, kidneys and heart

A prosecutor told a federal judge that the powder Tholen gave police Feb. 28 could have killed more than 500 people.

"I was escorted out of Las Vegas, and I haven't been back," said Tholen, who said he was whisked to a hospital, checked for contamination and caught a flight home to Salt Lake City.

"I wasn't actually taken into custody, but they kept a close eye on me right to the airport and out of Las Vegas, so I had no more access to his stuff or his room," Tholen said. "I have no idea at all what the disposition of anything is."