Law enforcement agencies this morning arrested a disgraced journalist who allegedly made eight threatening phone calls to Jewish institutions in January and February.
Juan Thompson, 31, was arrested in Saint Louis, Mo. A Justice Department press release alleges that he made the calls as part of an effort to harass and incriminate a woman with whom he was romantically involved. Thompson is scheduled to appear in court later today.
Raw Story reported that Thompson worked at the Intercept, but lost his job in Feb. 2016 after it was revealed that he fabricated quotes and sourced. On one occasion, he invented a cousin of white supremacist Dylan Roof.
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, according to ABC news.
Thompson’s Twitter account was still publicly available online as of this morning. It included references to a Secret Service investigation of him:
His Twitter account also includes various fringe political opinions. His Twitter biography was: “You show me a capitalist, and I’ll show you a bloodsucker” and he tweeted about President Donald Trump and the “white establishment’s” “desire to remove black ppl from the Southside of Chicago.”
Thompson also tweeted what appeared to be a condemnation of anti-Semitism:
The ADL first announced news of the arrest through the following tweet:
FBI, NYPD, and NYS police told us arrest made in bomb threats against ADL;several other Jewish institutions. Thx 2 them!More info as get it.
— ADL (@ADL) March 3, 2017
On Feb. 22, the ADL’s national office in New York City received a bomb threat.
There have been close to 100 threatening phone calls to various institutions since January. New York State Police’s Beau Duffy told CNN, “no one has been arrested for making the nationwide robocall JCC threats.”
This story will be updated as we receive more information.
