Journalist charged with cyberstalking Jewish institutions
A former reporter who had previously been fired from his journalistic career for fabricating stories was arrested on Friday for cyberstalking Jewish institutions and making threats against them.
Juan Thompson was charged with one count of cyberstalking after he allegedly made at least eight threats against Jewish institutions and then claimed that his girlfriend was the one making the threats. According to a criminal complaint against Thompson, he engaged in a “campaign to harass and intimidate” his former girlfriend that included making the threats and then trying to frame her for them. He also claimed that she was the one trying to frame him for the threats.
“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 F. Sweeney Jr. said in a statement.
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Evan Bernstein, the New York regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, praised the forward motion of Thompson’s arrest but noted that there was still much work to do with the number of threats against the Jewish community.
“The diligence of law enforcement at such a critical time for the Jewish community is very reassuring,” said Bernstein. “Just because there’s been an arrest today around our bomb threat does not mean that the threats have disappeared or will stop.”
Thompson had once been a journalist at The Intercept but was fired for fabricating stories, including one story that quoted “Scott Roof,” supposedly a cousin of Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof. However, it was later determined that Roof had no such cousin, and the story was taken down. The Intercept’s editor-in-chief wrote at the time in a special note to readers that Thompson had been fired for making up stories and impersonating people.
