Domestic Terrorism

One JCC Bomb Threat Caller Arrested

Written by SK Ashby

The FBI arrested a man in St. Louis this morning who allegedly delivered at least 8 bomb threats to Jewish Community Centers in several states.

According to authorities, Juan Thompson made the threats to implicate a woman that rejected him.

He’s charged in New York with cyberstalking a New York City woman by communicating threats in the woman’s name. Prosecutors said Thompson appears to have made those threats "as part of a sustained campaign to harass and intimidate” the woman after their romantic relationship ended. [...]

He is accused of making threats over the course of Jan. 28 to Feb. 22 against the Anti-Defamation League office in New York, a Jewish history museum in New York, as well as JCCs and Jewish schools in New York, Michigan, Dallas and San Diego.

Thompson allegedly made these copy-cat threats in a former girlfriend's name while the vast majority of the 100 threats made over the past 2 months were carried out by someone else. Thompson has only been accused of opportunistically delivering 8 threats. We still don't know who made the other 92.

Thompson is a former reporter for Glenn Greenwald's The Intercept. Thompson was caught fabricating stories, including fake emails and fake quotes, in early 2016.