A 44-year-old Massachusetts man pleaded guilty to importing nuclear material without lawful authority, mailing hazardous substances, and multiple felon-in-possession counts after federal prosecutors said he sold Russian plutonium through an online element business. Fox News reported the plea package from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts.
Jacob D. Miller also pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography. He has remained in federal custody since his April 9, 2025 arrest. Sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 21.
The case combines restricted nuclear material, prohibited mail shipments, firearms and explosives recovery, and a renewed child sexual abuse materials finding against a man already barred by prior felonies. Prosecutors framed the conduct as unlawful possession and unlawful importation tied to years of commercial sales.
Miller pleaded guilty to one count of being a felon in possession of ammunition, one count of being a felon in possession of explosive materials, one count of importing nuclear material without lawful authority, one count of mailing hazardous materials, and one count of possession of child pornography. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts supplied those charge details as carried in the Fox News account.
A grand jury indicted him on April 17 after the April 9 arrest. He has stayed in federal custody since that arrest date. Federal prosecutors described the ammunition, firearms, and explosive materials as unlawful for him to possess because of previous felony convictions.
No public case docket number or statute citations appeared in the reporting package. Authorities have not publicly detailed total material quantities beyond the sales windows and customer counts described by prosecutors.
After release from earlier state sentences, Miller started Collect The Periodic Table, known as CTPT. He used CTPT and the third-party platform Bonanza to sell element samples that included plutonium and thallium, prosecutors said.
Federal prosecutors said he imported plutonium from Russia and had it mailed to his Massachusetts residence. From Dec. 30, 2020, through March 31, 2025, he sold plutonium to about 67 customers across the United States and abroad. He shipped those materials through the U.S. mail, prosecutors said.
Thallium sales ran longer. Prosecutors said he sold thallium to about 71 customers from Oct. 12, 2017, through April 5, 2025, again shipping through the U.S. mail. Prosecutors described plutonium and thallium as hazardous substances barred from that mail channel.
Investigators have not said whether any customers faced charges. No public results have been released about reported exposures or physical harms tied to the shipments. Those questions remain for investigators and the court record as sentencing approaches.
Miller’s federal disabilities did not begin in 2025. On Feb. 9, 2004, a Massachusetts state court convicted him for possessing child pornography and for possessing an explosive device.
The child pornography case brought seven years of probation. In the explosive-device case, which involved two counts, he received 2½ years in jail and 10 years of probation. Prosecutors later tied his 2025 firearms, ammunition, and explosive materials counts to that felony history.
Exact release dates from the 2004-related sentences were not stated in the available federal summary. The same gap covers the precise launch date for CTPT after his release. What prosecutors did state is the commercial pattern that followed and the materials recovered at his residence.
Investigators searched Miller’s Massachusetts residence in April 2025. They recovered bottles of explosive powder, numerous rounds of ammunition, and six firearms, prosecutors said. Photo captions in the coverage referenced Federal American Eagle.45-caliber ammunition among seized rounds, with image credit to FBI Boston and, on one caption, the Justice Department.
The specific city or street for the residence was not published in the report. What authorities confirmed is the District of Massachusetts venue, the residential search, and the inventory prosecutors listed.
Prosecutors also said a laptop and a cell phone contained child sexual abuse materials. Those files had been opened as recently as the day before the search warrant, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office account relayed in the coverage. That finding supported the separate child pornography count in the plea.
Authorities have not publicly confirmed forfeiture outcomes for the six firearms or the other seized items beyond the recovery itself. Sentencing on Jan. 21 will set the next formal mark in the case.
The mechanics described by prosecutors were straightforward and repeated. Plutonium came from Russia to a Massachusetts mailbox. Sales ran through CTPT and Bonanza. Shipments of plutonium and thallium went out through U.S. mail despite the hazardous-materials bar prosecutors cited.
Customer geography spanned the United States and locations abroad for the plutonium side. The thallium window stretched more than seven years. The plutonium window covered more than four years and ended weeks before the April 2025 arrest.
Federal investigators will still need to determine, for the public record, how far buyer-side exposure reached and whether any parallel cases follow the Miller plea. The plea itself resolves his guilt on the five enumerated counts. It does not, on the published facts, close every investigative thread around the customer list.
Arrest came on April 9, 2025. Indictment followed on April 17. Miller has remained in federal custody through the plea. Sentencing is set for Jan. 21, with the calendar year for that hearing date not specified in the report.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts stands as the charging and plea authority named in the coverage. FBI Boston appeared in image credits tied to seized materials. No verbatim press-conference quotations from officials appeared in the source package, so the factual spine rests on the office’s described findings and the plea entry itself.
Plain terms matter here. Importing nuclear material without lawful authority means bringing controlled nuclear material into the country outside legal channels. Felon-in-possession counts bar people with disqualifying convictions from holding guns, ammunition, or explosive materials. Mailing hazardous materials covers shipping substances the postal system prohibits. The child pornography count tracks illegal images found on his devices.
Prosecutors laid out sales counts, date ranges, import origin, mail use, and the residential recovery list. They did not publish per-shipment masses, total activity levels, or a full accounting of every buyer. The city for the Massachusetts residence stays unnamed in the report. Exact plea calendar day is also unstated beyond the fact of the guilty pleas and the Jan. 21 sentencing setting.
Investigators have not said whether the six firearms or explosive powder bottles face separate forfeiture orders beyond seizure. No public statement in the package addresses injuries, property damage, or facility closures tied to the materials. Motive language is absent from the official summary as reported.
Those gaps do not soften the plea. Miller admitted the five federal counts. The prior 2004 state convictions for child pornography and explosive-device possession remain part of the record prosecutors used to explain why ammunition, firearms, and explosive materials were off-limits.
Nuclear material, hazardous mail rules, and felon-in-possession laws exist to keep dangerous items out of unsupervised private commerce. In this case, prosecutors described a storefront model that moved plutonium and thallium through ordinary online sales paths and the U.S. mail. The same search that pulled guns and explosive powder also pulled recent child sexual abuse materials on a laptop and phone.
Fox News carried the U.S. Attorney’s Office account of the plea and the investigative findings that led there. The public facts show a repeat felon, a multi-year sales pattern, Russian-origin plutonium, prohibited mailing, and a fresh CSAM recovery timed to the warrant window.
Sentencing on Jan. 21 will fix punishment on the counts he admitted. Until then, he remains in federal custody, where he has been held since April 9, 2025.
When a convicted felon can import nuclear material, ship it through the mail, and stock guns and explosive powder at home, the issue is not taste in collectibles. It is whether the law’s bright lines on dangerous materials and prohibited persons still mean what they say.
