diff --git a/app/models/mail_handler.rb b/app/models/mail_handler.rb
index 5ea370e..0696216 100644
--- a/app/models/mail_handler.rb
+++ b/app/models/mail_handler.rb
@@ -436,7 +436,7 @@ class MailHandler < ActionMailer::Base
 
       body = Redmine::CodesetUtil.to_utf8(p.body.decoded, body_charset)
       # convert html parts to text
-      p.mime_type == 'text/html' ? self.class.html_body_to_text(body) : body
+      p.mime_type == 'text/html' ? self.class.html_body_to_text(body) : self.class.plain_text_body_to_text(body)
     end.join("\r\n")
 
     @plain_text_body
@@ -456,6 +456,13 @@ class MailHandler < ActionMailer::Base
     Redmine::WikiFormatting.html_parser.to_text(html)
   end
 
+  # Converts a plain/text email body to text
+  def self.plain_text_body_to_text(text)
+    # Removes leading spaces that would cause the line to be rendered as
+    # preformatted text with textile
+    text.gsub(/^ +(?![*#])/, '')
+  end
+
   def self.assign_string_attribute_with_limit(object, attribute, value, limit=nil)
     limit ||= object.class.columns_hash[attribute.to_s].limit || 255
     value = value.to_s.slice(0, limit)