Jeffrey Stevens, 41, allegedly sent messages to the CIA and to the Fort Wayne Police Department, in Indiana, threatening to murder Jews and pro-Israel government officials.
According to a complaint, filed on Feb. 12 with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana to apply for an arrest warrent, Stevens operated Facebook pages under the names “Jeffrey Stevens,” “Zayed Stevens” and the “Ishmael Report.”
On Sept. 28, someone wrote to the CIA from an IP address registered to Stevens and his partner, saying, “I am a journalist covering the Middle East with very strong connections throughout the West Bank, specifically in Jenin and Nablus, and I am starting to make reliable connections throughout Syria and Lebanon.
“I would like to be involved with anything not exactly Israel but Netanyahu’s far-right government that will only cause problems for the U.S.,” the writer continued. “I will make a lot of noise with or without you.”
On Oct. 8, the day after Hamas’s terror attack on Israel, someone posted to the CIA website from the same IP address: “I have very strong Palestinian, Hezbollah and Iranian contacts. You people had better wake up. If the U.S. strikes Palestinian resistance, you will be destroyed. I cannot wait until CIA operatives start getting eliminated. I am going to laugh.”
An email address bearing Stevens’s name and from the IP address registered at his residence, wrote to the CIA again on Nov. 17. “I am going to shoot every pro-israel [sic] US government official in the head, and there is nothing you can do about it because you are the pathetic CIA,” the person wrote. “I am going to kill all of you.”
Three days later, according to the complaint, the Zayed Stevens account on Facebook sent a message to the police department in Fort Wayne, Ind. “I am going to kill every Jew in ft. [sic] Wayne, and there is nothing you can do about it.” The message used several racist terms, per the complaint.
On Dec. 10, Stevens apparently became even bolder. He wrote again to the CIA, this time leaving his email address and phone number. “People will remember me. I am going to be the pro-Palestinian who finally had enough that i [sic] started eliminating CIA operatives,” he wrote. “I am going to make sure that every CIA member who is pro-Israel is eliminated. I am so confident that I will give you my phone number, and there is nothing you can do about it because you are a botch [sic].”
Law enforcement evidently did something about it.
Stevens admitted to investigators that he had written the messages to the CIA and Indiana police department, the complaint says. “Stevens also said that he has a drinking problem and that he does things when he is drunk, like the above post and message.”
Lisa Monaco, the U.S. deputy attorney general, told ABC News in December that there have been “more than 1,800” threats and tips related to the Oct. 7 attacks and the ensuing war, and more than 100 related criminal investigations are open.
About 450 Jewish families live in Fort Wayne, according to the city’s Jewish Federation.