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FBI arrests man who plotted ‘punishment of death’ for Jewish lawmakers

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Heavily armed Michigan man made a number of online threats to kill elected officials who are Jewish.

By World Israel News Staff

The FBI arrested a Michigan man last month who had threatened online to murder Jewish officials in the state, according to an unsealed criminal indictment obtained by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA).

According to the FBI affidavit seen by JTA, Jack Eugene Carpenter III wrote on Twitter that he was “heading back to Michigan now” to “carry out the punishment of death to anyone that is Jewish in the Michigan government if they don’t leave, or confess.”

A look at Carpenter’s Twitter feed revealed a number of threats against Jewish lawmakers.

“Any Jewish person holding a public office on my land…is subject to immediate punishment for their participation in an unlawful war of aggression using a biological weapon against me,” Carpenter wrote.

He offered to “grant a brief reprieve to any Zionist Christian or Zionist Jew” who was willing to “to return to the country to which you actually owe allegiance,” in what appeared to be a reference to Israel.

Should law enforcement attempt to arrest him, he pledged to respond with “deadly force.”

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Carpenter, who JTA reported was once employed as a computer systems administrator by the University of Michigan, is currently being held without bail by federal authorities in Detroit.

“Probable cause exists that” Carpenter’s Twitter manifestos constituted “ threats to cause injury and death to Jewish members of the Michigan government,” the FBI wrote in the affidavit.

Carpenter’s mother warned the FBI that he was heavily armed, with a 12-gauge shotgun, a military-style hunting rifle, and at least three handguns in his possession.

Because Carpenter was physically present when making the Twitter threats to harm Michigan Jewish lawmakers, he is being charged with the criminal offense of making an interstate threat.

If Carpenter is convicted on that charge, he could receive a maximum of five years in federal prison.