Missouri man arrested in bomb threats to Jewish centers: prosecutors

In January, the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced it was investigating possible civil rights violations in connection with the threats across the U.S.

After news of his arrest was revealed on Friday, a reporter at an alternative weekly in St. Louis said he was subjected to social media harassment after writing about Thompson’s firing from a news site for fabricating stories. Thompson, a former journalist, was sacked from a position with the Intercept past year for allegedly inventing sources, going so far as to create false email accounts to back up fraudulent reporting.

Thompson is a former journalist with the activist website The Intercept who was sacked a year ago for fabricating comments from people he never interviewed.

According to the unsealed Federal Bureau of Investigation complaint against him, Thompson – who was arrested in Missouri on Friday morning – made at least eight threats against JCCs, and also the Anti-Defamation League, “as part of a sustained campaign to harass and intimidate” an ex-girlfriend. Prosecutors say he was pretending to be his ex-girlfriend to make it seem like she was trying to frame him for the crimes.

This started an escalating pattern of abuse, the complaint said.

– An email (from an email generator) was sent to the Council on American Islamic Relations stating that Thompson’s ex-girlfriend had placed a bomb at the JCC in Dallas, Texas.

In the past month, there has been a disturbing wave of threats against Jewish community centers across the United States. In Michigan, the Jewish Community Center of Greater Ann Arbor also received a bomb threat.

One email referred to a “Jewish Newtown” – apparently alluding to a massacre at a CT school in 2012. Following the destruction of headstones, Muslim activists rallied to help support the Jewish community.

Thompson has been charged with cyberstalking and making bomb threats to various JCCs under the woman’s name.

February 20: The JCC in San Diego received an email stating that the woman had placed a bomb in the center.

David Shtulman is the director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Ann Arbor, which shares a building with Ann Arbor’s Jewish Community Center and has been evacuated twice in the past year.

Juan Thompson is accused of calling in bomb threats to multiple JCCs and the headquarters of the Anti-Defamation League. There could be one or more people still making threats, and that’s keeping the Jewish community on edge.

DAVID SCHAPER, BYLINE: Juan Thompson is charged with cyberstalking his ex-girlfriend nearly immediately after they broke up last summer.

“On his Twitter page, Thompson blames a “#whitegirl I dated who sent a bomb threat in my name”. The ADL has also seen bomb threats in 2017. In a statement, The Intercept said he has set up a fake email to hide his fabrications, which, according to Reuters, the same technique that federal authorities have accused him of using for the bomb threats.