Suspect arrested in JCC threats

The teen reportedly used advanced technology and voice-altering equipment to call in the threats to more than 100 JCCs, Jewish day schools and other Jewish institutions in the United States, according to The Times of Israel...

His father also has been detained on suspicion that he knew about his son’s activities, according to The Jerusalem Post.

Somewhere in the period of 2015 and 2016, Thompson was in a relationship with a young woman working in the greater New York City area. During the summer of 2016, they broke up. Thompson started sending her false text messages and emails, claiming, for example, that he had been the victim of a shooting and was going to be taken off life support. He emailed her boss, saying she had a sexually transmitted disease. And he sent her nude photographs he had of her, threatening to release them to the public.

Faxes and emails started showing up at her work. One email, allegedly sent by an account that had been used by Thompson, claimed she had threatened to kill him. A series of faxes claimed she was an anti-Semite, and purported to provide evidence that she had made anti-Semitic statements on social media.

Investigators say Thompson sent tips about the woman to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, saying she watches child porn. When the New York Police Department contacted Thompson about these claims, he said his email had been hacked a few weeks prior, even though a month had elapsed since the claims were made. The NYPD warned him that his “conduct must stop,” and that he shouldn’t contact the woman.

Starting in January, investigators believe, Thompson made at least eight threats to Jewish institutions around the country. Some were made in the woman’s name. Others were made in his own name; he later claimed that she had made the calls in an attempt to falsely implicate him in the threats. These allegedly included threatening emails sent to the Jewish History Museum in Manhattan on January 28; Jewish schools in Farmington Hills, Michigan, and New York City on February 1; a JCC in New York City on February 7; and a threatening phone call to the Anti-Defamation League, an organization that tracks anti-Semitism, on February 22. He also allegedly emailed the Anti-Defamation League, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and the JCC in San Diego claiming that the woman was anti-Semitic and planned to carry out violent attacks. These threats included various false details about bombs and explosives that had been planted in these Jewish institutions.

The criminal complaint also refers to Thompson’s Twitter account, where he allegedly wrote that he “[needs] to stop this nasty/racist #whitegirl I dated who sent me a bomb threat in my name & wants me to be raped in jail.” He went on to say that he had been visited by the FBI, and was “battling the racist FBI and this vile, evil, racist white woman.” He repeated the claim that she had been making the threats in an attempt to frame him.

While the story alleges a disturbing pattern of harassment and intimidation, it’s all the more complicated because of the context. Over the past two months, there have been at least 90 bomb threats made to 73 Jewish Community Centers and day schools, according to a statement the national JCC released on February 27. Three separate Jewish cemeteries have also been vandalized in Missouri, Pennsylvania, and New York. Jewish leaders across the country have condemned the broader set of attacks as part of a growing environment of anti-Semitism. As FBI Assistant-Director-in-Charge Sweeney said in a statement on Friday, “Thompson’s alleged pattern of harassment not only involved the defamation of his female victim, but his threats intimidated an entire community.”