Federal prosecutors on Wednesday charged a U.S.-Israeli dual citizen with hate crime and other offenses in connection with more than a hundred threats he allegedly phoned into Jewish community centers and organizations last year.
Michael Ron David Kadar, 19, was indicted in federal courts in Georgia, Florida and Washington, D.C. after an investigation into numerous threats against the community centers and high-profile Jewish organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League and Israeli embassy in Washington.
Prosecutors in Florida say Kadar, who is Jewish, made multiple calls involving bomb threats and active shooter threats to Jewish Community Centers throughout the state. The Florida indictment also charges Kadar with attempting to obstruct the free exercise of religion at the community centers.
In Washington, Kadar allegedly called in a bomb threat to ADL offices on March 7 and sent a threatening email about a bomb to the Israeli Embassy two days later. The Georgia indictment charges him with making threatening calls, cyberstalking and giving police a false report about a hostage situation at a private home.
Before Wednesday’s indictments, Kadar had already been hit with federal charges in Florida and Georgia for making similar threats against Jewish groups. In all, he is allegedly responsible for at least 160 — or about 9 percent — of the anti-Semitic incidents in the U.S. in 2017, according to an ADL report released Tuesday.
The ADL audit says there were 1,986 anti-Jewish incidents last year, a 57 percent increase over the 2016 total of 1,267. Based on ADL’s figures, Kadar accounted for more than one-fifth of the rise in incidents of threats or harassment of Jewish people in the U.S. last year.
In a statement on the latest charges against Kadar, FBI Director Christopher Wray said it didn’t matter that Kadar’s threats were hoaxes, because the fear felt by his targets was real.
“These alleged threats were very real for those individuals who were evacuated, for the first responders who quickly mobilized to get people out of harm’s way, and for those in Jewish communities across the United States who felt targeted and unsafe,” he said.
Kadar was arrested in April in Israel, where he also faces charges.
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