Mass. man sentenced to 26 months in prison for threatening local synagogues, Israeli consulate
John Reardon called the Israeli Consulate in Boston 98 times to make threatening statements including ‘wipe the Jews’
An undated photo of Agudas Achim synagogue in Attleboro, Massachusetts. Screenshot of Google maps
(JTA) — A Massachusetts man was sentenced to over two years in prison Thursday for threatening to bomb two local synagogues and to kill Jewish children, the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Massachusetts has announced.
John M. Reardon, 60, was arrested in January 2024 for the series of threatening calls, including one voicemail left for Congregation Agudas Achim in Attleboro, Massachusetts, where he stated, “You do realize that by supporting genocide that means it’s OK for people to commit genocide against you.”
Reardon pleaded guilty in November to obstruction of free exercise of religious beliefs by threat of force, transmitting an interstate commerce a threat to injure a person and stalking using a facility of interstate commerce. According to the U.S. attorney’s office, Reardon also called the Israeli Consulate in Boston 98 times to leave threatening, antisemitic messages including “death to Israel, wipe the Jews.”
In another voicemail left with the consulate, Reardon referenced the Holocaust, stating, “Time to prepare the furnaces again. I hope that you people are wiped off the face of the earth,” according to court documents.
“What John Reardon did is despicable. Spurred by deep-rooted hate, he relentlessly threatened violent, physical harm to members of the Jewish community in greater Boston, spanning two congregations in two different cities, as well as the Israeli consulate,” Ted E. Docks, the special agent in charge of the FBI for the Boston division, said in a statement.
Reardon’s prison sentence will be followed by three years of supervised release, according to the U.S. attorney’s office. He was also ordered to pay $1,260 in restitution to the victims.
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
