Juan Thompson, 31, was arrested in St. Louis, Missouri. He is accused of making at least eight of the threats against JCCs.
Juan Thompson, made some of the threats in his own name and others in the name of a former girlfriend, apparently in an attempt to intimidate her, according to a federal complaint filed by the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan and unsealed on Friday.
Thompson, a former Chicago journalist was previously linked to a “pattern of deception” involving fabricating quotes and creating fake email accounts while writing for The Intercept, a New York-based online publication. Thompson, whose employment at The Intercept ended more than a year ago, previously worked as an intern at Chicago Public Media WBEZ FM 91.5 and at DNAinfo.com Chicago.
Thompson has a twitter account @JuanMThompson full of anti-semitic and racist tweets. He accused President trump of ethnic cleansing in a Feb 23 Tweet. He also claimed in a tweet that he was “reverting to Islam”, in another that 42% of Americans were “filthy fascist appeasers, and should be “taken out along with (President) Trump”, and that he once nearly got killed in a drive-by shooting.