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Home Front: WoT
About that man arrested for bomb threats against 8 US Jewish centers
2017-03-04
What was known at the end of the day yesterday, and a place to put any new discoveries today.
[IsraelTimes] Suspect Juan Thompson apparently made threats as a campaign to harass former girlfriend, using her name; investigation into robocalls to other JCCs ongoing.

US law enforcement agencies have tossed in the clink
Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages!
a man suspected of being behind at least eight bomb threats against Jewish organizations in recent weeks, Federal authorities said Friday.

Authorities named the suspect as Juan Thompson, 31, and said that the threats were made as a campaign to harass a former girlfriend, using her name to make some of the threats.

"Today, we have charged Juan Thompson with allegedly stalking a former romantic interest by, among other things, making bomb threats in her name to Jewish Community Centers and to the Anti-Defamation League," New York-based US Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement. "Threats of violence targeting people and places based on religion or race ‐- whatever the motivation ‐- are unacceptable, un-American and criminal."

Thompson was arrested in St. Louis, Missouri and was expected to appear in a Missouri court later Friday on one count of cyberstalking.

The FBI, NYPD and New York state police "informed us arrest made in bombthreat vs ADL & several other Jewish institutions," ADL director Jonathan Greenblatt tweeted. "Thx to them for amazing work."

The ADL was one of the institutions target by Thompson.

Since January there have been five waves of bomb threats to Jewish community centers and other institutions nationwide, totaling over 100 incidents. Other anti-Semitic attacks have also sparked worry in Jewish communities.

"Today, we have charged Juan Thompson with allegedly stalking a former romantic interest by, among other things, making bomb threats in her name to Jewish Community Centers and to the Anti-Defamation League," New York-based US Attorney Preet Bharara said.
On Thursday, a cemetery in Rochester, NY was vandalized, and in the previous week hundreds of Jewish tombstones in Pennsylvania and Missouri were toppled.

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.

Police told CNN that no one had been arrested for the series of robocalls to dozens of other JCCs and the investigation was ongoing.

There have been multiple other anti-Semitic incidents in the months since the US presidential election, including swastikas and racial slurs being drawn on schools and other buildings.

According to court documents seen by The Times of Israel, Thompson sent a series of emails and calls to a number of organizations accusing his ex-girlfriend of targeting Jewish institutions, spreading sexually transmitted diseases and carrying out hacking attacks.

"As set forth below it appears Juan Thompson, the defendant, has made at least eight JCC threats nationwide as part of harassment against the victim," said a statement to the court by an FBI agent who had been investigating him

Some were made in the victim’s name, while others were made in his own name. Thompson told the FBI the victim was trying to get him arrested.

He also tweeted that his ex-girlfriend was trying to frame him and that she had threatened to kill US President Donald Trump
...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States...
On February 21, he sent an email to the ADL naming the victim as the person making the bomb threats. Then, on February 22, he made a phone call to the ADL saying there was C-4 explosives in the ADL’s New York office that would be "detonated within one hour."

Searches of the building revealed nothing.

The agent said Thompson was also responsible for threats to Jewish centers in Dallas and San Diego, the Jewish History Museum and a Jewish school in Manhattan.

In one call to a Jewish school in Michigan that was made in Thompson’s name, the caller said he was "eager for a Jewish Newtown" referencing the massacre in Newton, Connecticut in which 20 children were murdered.

The testimony said threatening calls were also made to Council on American-Islamic Relations
... the Moslem Brüderbund's American arm ...
(CAIR
...designated a terrorist group by the UAE...

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."

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
...a political system developed in Italy symbolized by the Roman fasces -- thin reeds, each flimsy in itself but unbreakable when bound into a bundle. The word is nowadays thrown around by all sorts of people who have no idea what they're talking about...
and socio-economic terrorism."

He created a GoFundMe page to raise $5,000 for his election bid. He got $25, the ADL said.
Another Times of Israel article points out he has falsified tweet identities before:
After news of his arrest was revealed on Friday, a news hound 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.

The Riverfront Times news hound Doyle Murphy said Thompson set up anonymous accounts on Twitter and other social media posing as a woman who claimed she had been sexually assaulted by Murphy. Murphy says he contacted Twitter but every time one fake account was taken down a new one popped up. He called the harassment a "nightmare."

Thompson appears to tweet daily, often railing against "white people" and the "white liberal DC/NY media elite," sparring with supporters of US President Donald and tweeting directly on a number of occasions at Trump himself.

He worked at the New York-based The Intercept from November 2014 to January 2016.
NPR has a list miscreant's bomb threats, and adds:
Thompson has been charged with one count of cyberstalking. If convicted, he could face up to five years in prison.

Thompson is accused of making the following threats against Jewish centers, none of which were found to be credible:

Jan. 28: Manhattan's Jewish History Museum received an emailed bomb threat stating that Thompson had placed two bombs there.

Feb. 1: A Jewish school in Farmington Hills, Mich., received an emailed bomb threat claiming that Thompson "put two bombs in your school last night. He is eager for Jewish newtown."

Feb. 1: A Jewish school in Manhattan received two messages in 10 minutes claiming that Thompson had placed bombs in the building.

Feb. 7: A Jewish community center in Manhattan received an emailed threat claiming that Thompson had stashed two bombs in the center's office.

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

Feb. 21: The Council on American-Islamic Relations received an email stating that the woman "has put a bomb in the Jewish center in Dallas."

Feb. 21: The Anti-Defamation League received an email that said the woman "is behind the bomb threats against jews. She lives in nyc and is making bomb threats tomorrow."

Feb. 22: The ADL received a call claiming there was explosive material "in the ADL's New York office, and that it would be 'detonated within one hour.' "
Update at 3:15 p.m. ET from the NPR article:
The Federal Communications Commission has also gotten involved, granting a waiver to Jewish Community Centers allowing them to see who might be calling from blocked phone numbers.
Posted by:trailing wife

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