Man arrested over threats to Jewish institutions nationwide

The Jewish Community Center is seen in Tarrytown, New York, Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2017. The latest in a wave of bomb threat hoaxes called into more than 20 Jewish community centers and schools across the country has again put administrators in the position of having to decide whether a threatening message on the other end of a phone line was enough to evacuate. (Photo by SETH WENIG/AP)

NEW YORK — A former journalist fired for making up stories is behind at least eight of the scores of threats made against Jewish institutions nationwide, and a bomb threat to New York’s Anti-Defamation League, in an effort to harass and vilify his former girlfriend, federal officials said Friday.

Juan Thompson, 31, was arrested in St. Louis and will appear in federal court in Missouri on Friday afternoon on a charge of cyberstalking, authorities said. There was no information on an attorney who could comment on his behalf.

Federal officials have been investigating 122 bomb threats called in to nearly 100 Jewish Community Center schools, child care and similar facilities in three dozen states that began Jan. 9. Thompson started making his own threats Jan. 28, and authorities are continuing to investigate the other threats, they said.

University City, Missouri, police Lt. Fredrick Lemons told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that detectives will question Thompson about the 154 headstones toppled last month at a Jewish cemetery in the St. Louis suburb. He declined to say whether Thompson was considered a suspect.

Thompson’s first threat was to the Jewish History Museum in Manhattan, authorities said. He made up an email address to make it seem like the victim was sending threats in his name and sent messages to Jewish schools in Farmington Hills, Michigan, and Manhattan and to a JCC in Manhattan, authorities said.

Then Thompson, who’s black, took to Twitter: “Know any good lawyers?” he wrote. “Need to stop this nasty/racist #whitegirl I dated who sent a bomb threat in my name.” He later tweeted to the FBI: “I’m been (sic) tormented by an anti-Semite. She sent an antijewish bomb threat in my name. Help.”

But police say it was all a hoax, created to make the woman look guilty.

Thompson, a former journalist, was fired from the online publication The Intercept last year after being accused of fabricating several quotes and creating fake email accounts to impersonate people, including the Intercept’s editor-in-chief. One of the falsified stories involved Dylann Roof, the Charleston, South Carolina, church shooter.

The Intercept wrote Friday: “We were horrified to learn this morning that Juan Thompson, a former employee of The Intercept, has been arrested in connection with bomb threats against the ADL and multiple Jewish Community Centers in addition to cyberstalking. These actions are heinous and should be fully investigated and prosecuted.”

Authorities say Thompson also made threats in the woman’s name and sent a Feb. 21 email to the ADL saying she was responsible.

“She lives in nyc and is making more bomb threats tomorrow,” the email said, according to federal authorities. The next day, the ADL got a phoned-in bomb threat from an untraceable phone number from someone using a voice disguiser.

Thompson also is accused of sending a note to the San Diego JCC that said the woman “hates Jewish people and is the head of a ring and put a bomb in the center to kill as many Jews asap,” authorities said.

According to a federal complaint, the pair broke up last summer. The following day, her boss received an email purporting to be from a national news organization saying she’d been pulled over for drunken driving.

The harassment got worse from there, authorities said. She received an anonymous email with nude photos of herself and a threat to release them to the public. Her boss got a note saying she had a sexually transmitted disease. The company got anonymous faxes saying she was anti-Semitic. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children got a note saying the woman watched child porn.

The ADL said Friday that Thompson had been on its radar since he fabricated the story about Roof. According to ADL research, Thompson claimed that he wanted to dismantle the system of “racial supremacy and greedy capitalism that is stacked against us.” He said he was going to run for mayor of St. Louis last year to “fight back against Trumpian fascism and socio-economic terrorism.”

He created a GoFundMe page to raise $5,000 for his election bid. He got $25, the ADL said.

“We are relieved and gratified that the FBI has made an arrest in these cases,” said Jonathan A. Greenblatt, head of the ADL. “We look forward to the quick resolution of the remaining open cases.” –Colleen Long

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Associated Press writers Jim Salter in St. Louis and Jake Pearson in New York contributed to this report.