NEW YORK (AP) – A former journalist fired for making up details in stories is behind at least eight of the scores of threats made against Jewish institutions nationwide, as well as a bomb threat to the Anti-Defamation League, in an effort to harass and vilify his ex-girlfriend, federal officials said Friday.
Juan Thompson, 31, was arrested in St. Louis and will appear in federal court in Missouri on Friday afternoon on a charge of cyberstalking, authorities said. There was no information on an attorney who could comment on his behalf.
Federal officials have been investigating 122 bomb threats called in to nearly 100 Jewish Community Center schools, child care and similar facilities in three dozen states that began Jan. 9. Thompson started making his own threats Jan. 28, and authorities are continuing to investigate the other threats, they said.
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.
Thompson’s first threat was to the Jewish History Museum in Manhattan, authorities said. He made up an email address to make it seem like the victim was sending threats in his name, and he sent messages to Jewish schools in Farmington Hills, Michigan, and Manhattan and to a JCC in Manhattan, authorities said. The Council on American-Islamic Relations also received an anonymous email saying the woman put a bomb in a Dallas Jewish center.