STREAM EXCLUSIVE ORIGINALS

'Serial Fabulist' Juan Thompson Made JCC Bomb Threats to Frame His Ex and Now People Are Debating the Legitimacy of a Rise in Anti-Semitism

The arrest of the fired Intercept reporter ignited a controversial Twitter reaction.

On Friday, the FBI arrested 31-year-old former writer for The Intercept Juan Thompson in connection with at least eight threats made to Jewish Community Centers across the country. Thompson’s threats were part of what federal prosecutors called a "campaign to harass and intimidate" a woman after they broke up, according to the complaint report.

Thompson’s murky history does not begin nor end with the copycat threats made to the Jewish Centers. Most recently, Thompson was fired from his job at The Intercept for fabricating quotes and evidence to sensationalize his stories. 

Although Thompson’s threats took place during a wave of scares aimed at Jewish Community Centers, investigators do not consider his actions connected to the larger series of threats and grave desecrations that have occurred.

According to the federal complaint, Thompson sent emails and other forms of electronic communication to “engage in a course of conduct that placed that person in reasonable fear of the death of and serious bodily injury to that person” between July 2016 through March 2017.

“Thompson’s alleged pattern of harassment not only involved the defamation of his female victim, but his threats intimidated an entire community,” FBI Assistant Director in Charge William Sweeney Jr. said in a statement.

  • When Thompson made the threats, he did them in his ex's and his own name in order to set her up

    Around Feb. 20, a San Diego JCC received an email from Thompson's account claiming the woman he dated “hates Jewish people and is the head of a run and put a bomb in the center” of the JCC “to kill as many Jews asap.”

  • Although Thompson's threats only account for less than 10 percent of the recent threats, a debate over the legitimacy of all the scares has begun

    Recently, President Trump reportedly stated that the some of the attacks and threats made toward the Jewish community might be the "reverse" in order to make people look bad. Based on Trump's comment and Thompson's actions, some are now inflating the idea that the threats toward JCCs are fabricated. 

  • However, many focus on the fact that Thompson's co-opting of real threats to harass a woman is terrible

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