An Oregon man has been charged with making multiple antisemitic threats involving explosives against Jewish healthcare centers in the New York City and Long Island areas in 2021, the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York and the FBI’s New York field office announced Tuesday.
Domagoj Patkovic, 31, was arrested at his home in Portland Tuesday morning.
He and his co-conspirators were “motivated by their hatred of Jewish people, targeted Jewish hospitals and care centers in New York City and on Long Island with hoax bomb threats, needlessly endangering patients and staff by creating chaos and alarm,” US Attorney Breon Peace said in a statement.
The threats predated a recent spree of bomb threats against Jewish institutions, mainly synagogues, that began in the summer of 2023. There have been multiple arrests in connection with those threats, as well.
In at least six phone calls in May and September 2021, Patkovic threatened hospitals and local law enforcement responding to a 911 call from one of those hospitals, and live streamed the calls on Discord, a social media and messaging platform. No bombs or explosive devices were found at any of the locations, but in several instances, local police conducted bomb sweeps. In at least one instance, the fake bomb threat resulted in a partial evacuation and lockdown of an entire Long Island Jewish hospital.
During the phone call to a phone operator at Long Island Jewish Valley Stream, Patkovic, identifying himself as “Abrahimavich,” claimed there was C-4, an explosive material, in the maintenance closets and threatened, “I’m gonna blow you to bits you f****** kike b****,” court records said.
The phone operator then called Nassau County Police, who were able to place a call back to the number that made the threat, where Patkovic again identified himself as “Abrahimavich” and said, “I just called the hospital requesting my f****** million dollars, or I’m going to blow this kike f****** b**** to the sky.”
Police were called to the hospital, where they conducted a partial evacuation and lockdown and did not find explosives.
Perpetrator could face extended prison sentence
If convicted, Patkovic could face up to 155 years in prison. Though he has no recent convictions, Patkovic was found to have engaged in similar behavior of making threats of false explosive devices and weapons in the past.
“Domagoj Patkovic allegedly issued a series of false bomb threats against Jewish healthcare facilities that prompted repeated emergency responses from local law enforcement and a partial evacuation from at least one hospital,” Christie Curtis, the FBI’s acting assistant director in charge, said in a statement.
“These alleged actions incited unnecessary hysteria and redirected limited resources to mitigate a false alarm,” she added. “The FBI will not tolerate those who utilize hoax bomb threat schemes to satisfy their antisemitic beliefs and endanger the wellbeing of our communities.”
Jewish institutions have experienced periodic waves of widespread bomb threats. Hundreds of Jewish community centers received bomb threats in 2017 in a wave that was ultimately largely attributed to a teenager in Israel, who was arrested. In 2020, dozens of centers received emailed threats. And investigators said they did not believe the people they arrested were responsible for the full sweep of the current wave of threats and swatting attempts, which they attributed to a swatting ring coordinated online.
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