FBI: Man threatened Muslim candidate, synagogue in posts

A North Carolina man charged with anonymously threatening to lynch a Muslim-American political candidate in Virginia also is accused of posting an anti-Semitic threat on a Florida synagogue’s Facebook page.

An FBI agent outlined those allegations against 52-year-old Joseph Cecil Vandevere in an affidavit unsealed before Vandevere’s initial court appearance today in Asheville, North Carolina.

Investigators link Vandevere to a threatening comment posted in February 2018 on the website of a synagogue in Plantation, Florida, the affidavit says. A rabbi at Ramat Shalom Synagogue contacted the FBI after somebody using the name Bob Smith posted a “disturbing” comment in response to the rabbi’s post showing support for the Parkland, Florida, high school where a gunman killed 17 people earlier that month, the agent writes.

Vandevere is charged with interstate communication of a threat to injure a person in connection with a tweet directed at Virginia state Senate candidate Qasim Rashid. The tweet included a picture of a lynching and read, “VIEW YOUR DESTINY.”

Rashid posted a screenshot of the threatening tweet in March 2018 and reported it to the FBI.

The FBI subpoenaed Facebook records associated with the “Bob Smith” account after the Florida rabbi reported the anti-Semitic comment, which called for “public arrests and executions” of “dual citizen Jews.” Responses to the Facebook subpoena and a separate subpoena to telecommunications company Charter Communications linked the account to Vandevere, the agent writes.

“The review of the Facebook search warrant results disclosed that the Facebook account was used by Vandevere mainly to harass other people,” the affidavit says, noting that Vandevere called it his “attack dog” account.

— AP