Police on Friday arrested a St. Louis man accused of making at least eight threats to Jewish institutions in what was allegedly an effort to “harass and intimidate” a former romantic partner.
The case appears to account for only a few of the many threats made against Jewish organizations in recent weeks.
A complaint unsealed Friday in federal district court in Manhattan, and obtained by TPM, alleges that the man, Juan Thompson, made some of the threats in his former partner’s name, and some in his own name. Thompson said his former partner was responsible for the threats made in his name.
Thompson has been charged with one count of cyberstalking.
Thompson appears to be the same journalist who was fired from The Intercept in January 2016 for what the publication called “a pattern of deception,” including fabricating quotes and creating fake email accounts.
“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,” Charlotte Greensit, managing editor of The Intercept, said in an email to TPM. “These actions are heinous and should be fully investigated and prosecuted. We have no information about the charges against Thompson other than what is included in the criminal complaint. Thompson worked for The Intercept from November 2014 to January 2016, when he was fired after we discovered that he had fabricated sources and quotes in his articles.”
According to the complaint filed against Thompson, his threats toward JCCs were part of a pattern of harassment against his victim.
“In recent months, the FBI has been investigating a series of threats across the country principally targeting Jewish Community Centers (‘JCC’), schools, and other organizations that provide service to and on behalf of the Jewish community (the ‘JCC Threats’),” the complaint’s overview reads. “Based on the FBI’s investigation, JUAN THOMPSON, the defendant, appears to have made some of the JCC Threats as part of a sustained campaign to harass and intimidate Victim-1.”
Thompson’s harassment, the complaint continues, included “defamatory emails and faxes to Victim-1’s employer … false reports of criminal activities by Victim-1 … and JCC Threats in Victim-1’s name.”
Thompson allegedly emailed his former partner’s employer in July of last year, for example, claiming to be a producer for a national news organization, according to the complaint. He said that she had been pulled over for drunken driving, and also that she was being sued for spreading an STD, according to the complaint.
The complaint added: “On or about October 15, 2016, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (‘NCMEC’) received an electronic communication from an anonymous source using a particular internet protocol address (the ‘Thompson IP Address’), which stated: ‘I was at a disco-tech two weeks ago and met [Victim-1] who said she watched child porn. I thought she was joking until she showed me two pictures, on her phone, of a child engaged in sex acts.'”
In one incident referenced in the complaint, a Jewish community center in Manhattan received an email from an anonymous account, which read: “Juan Thompson [THOMPSON’s birthday] put two bombs in the office of the Jewish center today. He wants to create Jewish newtown tomorrow.”
On Feb. 20, in a threat he allegedly made in his former partner’s name against a San Diego JCC, according to the complaint, Thompson wrote in an email that she “hates Jewish people is the head of a ring and put a bomb in the center at [the San Diego JCC’s address] to kill as many Jews asap.”
On Feb. 22, the Anti-Defamation League headquarters in New York City were evacuated, an NYPD spokesperson confirmed to TPM, after an unidentified caller contacted the office and claimed there was a bomb in the building. The complaint against Thompson alleges that an unknown individual told the ADL that they had put C-4 in their building, and that it would be “detonated within one hour.”
The ADL, in a statement Friday, thanked the FBI for its work and said it looked forward to the resolution of the remaining open cases of bomb threats.
“The arrested individual was on the radar of ADL’s Center on Extremism, which had followed his past activities, including his deceptive and at times false reports for a news website about Dylann Roof, the perpetrator of the church shooting in Charleston, SC,” the statement continued.
On his Twitter account, Thompson accused his former parter of calling in a bomb threat in his name and says he was subsequently visited by the FBI:
A few days later, according to the complaint, Thompson posted from his Twitter account: “The hatred of Jews goes across all demos. Ask NYC’s [Victim-1’s employer]. They employ a filthy anti-Semite in [Victim-1]. These ppl are evil.”
Jewish institutions have collectively received more than 120 bomb threats in the past two months, according to NPR’s count. The threats are seemingly made in waves, with dozens of Jewish Community Centers threatened on the same days.
Editor’s note: The suspect appears to be the same Juan M. Thompson who, while a staffer for The Intercept, freelanced a personal essay in 2015 for TPM’s since-discontinued Slice section. Thompson was fired from the Intercept in early 2016 for an alleged “pattern of deception,” including what the Intercept said were fake email addresses, fabricated quotes and lying about his reporting on stories. In light of the Intercept’s findings, TPM removed Thompson’s essay from the site at that time.
Read the complaint here, or below:
This post has been updated.
