What We Know About Juan Thompson, The Man Charged With Threatening 108 Jewish Community Centers
On Friday, the arrest of St. Louis man Juan Thompson was announced, with Thompson accused of cyber-stalking and threatening several Jewish Community Centers across the country. While the threats fit in with a larger trend of threats against Jewish centers this year, Thompson is not the main suspect in the wave of threats, according to police. Here's what you need to know about Thompson and the threats against JCCs.
Thompson's Threats Were Allegedly Part Of A Harassment Campaign Against An Ex-Girlfriend
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.
[ABC News]
Last Week, Thompson Tweeted That The Opposite Was Happening
In a tweet on February 24th, Thompson claimed that his ex-girlfriend was trying to frame him for the threats:
He continued to tweet about it:
Including tweeting directly at the Secret Service:
According to The Daily Beast, Thompson may have sought the assistance of 8chan in harassing his ex:
[F]ive months ago, an anonymous poster made a request on an 8chan message board where users can crowdsource a doxxing."What can I do to destroy her life?" the anonymous poster wrote, adding the victim's name, address, and workplace, and similar allegations noted in the cyberstalking complaint — namely that she had infected him with a sexually transmitted disease.
Thompson Was Fired By The Intercept In 2016 For Fabricating Stories
The Intercept recently discovered a pattern of deception in the actions of a staff member. The employee, Juan Thompson, was a staff reporter from November 2014 until last month. Thompson fabricated several quotes in his stories and created fake email accounts that he used to impersonate people, one of which was a Gmail account in my name.
Gawker did a thorough run-down of the incident, including Thompson's various defenses:
Shortly before Reed's post, The Intercept prepended lengthy editor's notes to five of Thompson's prior articles. Four of the notes amount to severe corrections; the fifth, attached to an article containing quotes attributed to a cousin of the white supremacist Dylann Roof, indicates a total retraction: "After speaking with two members of Dylann Roof's family, The Intercept can no longer stand by the premise of this story. Both individuals said that they do not know of a cousin named Scott Roof."
[Gawker]
Thompson's Alleged Threats Account For Only A Fraction Of The Threats Against JCCs
Nonetheless, New York State Police's Beau Duffy says, "No one has been arrested for making the nationwide robocall JCC threats." "That's still an active FBI investigation," he said… A total of 101 bomb threats were received by 81 different Jewish institutions in that time, according to data from the JCC Association of North America. Those threats largely occurred in five separate waves of threats, most recently on February 27. Thompson's arrest, in St. Louis, was the result of the ongoing investigation into those bomb threats, officials said.
[CNN]
Here's a helpful thread breaking down what's left to find out: