Accused JCC Bomb Threat Hoaxer Says He Was Framed By Racist Cops
Image by YouTube
A black former journalist charged with making a wave of bomb threats to Jewish organizations says he was framed by racist authorities.
“Make no mistake: this is a modern-day lynching,” Juan Thompson, 31, said in a telephone interview from the Warren County jail in Missouri. “The allegations are false.”
Thompson, who said he holds no anti-Semitic beliefs, is scheduled to appear in Manhattan federal court on Wednesday.
Prosecutors say Thompson used fake email accounts to impersonate his ex-girlfriend when he sent the bomb threats.
Thompson was a reporter for the Intercept news website until he was fired last year for allegedly inventing sources and quotes.
U.S. authorities have been investigating a surge of threats against Jewish organizations, including more than 100 bomb threats against community centers in dozens of states in separate waves since January.
The organizations Thompson threatened include a Jewish museum in New York and the Anti-Defamation League, according to a criminal complaint in Manhattan federal court. All occurred after the first flood of phone threats in early January.
Last week, an 18-year-old dual Israeli and U.S. citizen was arrested in Israel on suspicion of making dozens of other hoax bomb threats to Jewish centers.
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
