Oct. 17 (UPI) — A 64-year-old North Carolinian has been arrested and charged after sending death threats last week to a Jewish organization.
Jeffrey Scott Hobgood, of Troy, N.C., is accused of sending the unnamed Jewish organization at least two threatening emails, the first of which was sent Wednesday. In the email, Hobgood said he will “take out every one of you,” according to the criminal complaint.
The second email was sent to the same organization Friday after Hobgood was contacted by law enforcement, whom he told the content of the first email was “none of their business” and that if they didn’t get off his property things would become “dangerous.”
In the second email to the Jewish organization, Hobgood threatened that Jews, whom he called “traitors,” would be publicly executed.
“Guess what happens to traitors?” he said in the email, according to the criminal complaint. “Public execution. We are at war [expletive] and your citizens started it. Guess who’s going to finish it? If you think you semite pieces of [expletive] are going to win, then you are delusional.”
The criminal complaint states that the email included a quote attributed to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and “a graphic of headshots of individuals purportedly associated with multiple news media organizations, with stars of David affixed to the upper left-hand corner of each headshot.”
The emails were sent days after a war between Israel and Hamas began Oct. 7, which has resulted in thousands dead.
The conflict has raised concerns in the United States over violence directed at those of Jewish or Palestinian heritage.
On Saturday, a 6-year-old boy was fatally stabbed and his mother, who is Palestinian and originally from the occupied West Bank, was wounded when they were allegedly attacked by their landlord, Joseph Czuba, seemingly because of the mother’s country of origin.
On Oct. 11, the Asheville, N.C., Police Department arrested and charged Michael Patrick Toone, 44, on accusations of sending a series of threatening and anti-Semitic emails to a local synagogue.
Hobgood has been charged with transmitting in interstate commerce a communication containing a threat to injure the person of another, and if convicted he faces a maximum term of five years’ imprisonment and a maximum fine of $250,000.
“No one in America should be threatened based on their race, nationality, religion, gender, or other protected characteristics,” U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of North Carolina Sandra Hairston said in a statement.
“Individuals who target other community members will be held accountable for their actions.”
Prosecutors on Tuesday also said Hobgood had previously left threatening messages in June 2022 to a family member.