Bob CollinsMichael Kadar, the man accused of making at least 245 threatening calls to Jewish Community Centers, apparently was a threat-maker for hire, The Atlantic reports today.
The St. Louis Park Jewish Community Center was one of many to get bomb threats when it was evacuated last winter.
A newly unsealed search warrant says he charged $30 for an email bomb threat to a school, $15 if you wanted to frame someone for making the threat. He advertised his service on AlphaBay, an online marketplace for illicit goods and services, according to The Atlantic.
When Kadar was arrested in late March, members of the Jewish Community were shocked that an Israeli teenager appeared to responsible for many of the bomb threats that had forced Jewish Community Centers and schools to repeatedly evacuate their buildings last winter.
Authorities arrested another suspect, Juan Thompson, in connection with some of the threats, but he appeared to make only a handful of the calls and was allegedly attempting to get revenge on an ex-girlfriend. The new documents suggest that even more people may have been involved as buyers — but how many, who, and why they did it are all not yet clear, and the document does not specifically state that any of the threats to Jewish institutions were issued at the behest of clients.
So far, the investigation has led to a surprising pair of suspects. It’s not clear what kind of person will emerge as a suspect next.
Not revealed in the document, however, is the obvious question: Who hired him?
(h/t: Paul Tosto)
