Tempe Man Arrested for Antisemitic Email Threat to Execute Local Rabbi and "every other JEW I can find"

PHOENIX, Ariz. – Jeffrey Mindock, 50, of Tempe, was arrested Saturday morning on a federal complaint and arrest warrant by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for making a threat to execute a local Rabbi and “every other JEW [sic] I can find tonight at midnight of your Sabbath.”

The complaint alleges that Mindock sent an email on the morning of Friday November 3, 2023, to a Rabbi at a local synagogue in Scottsdale, asking the Rabbi to “try to convince” a judge in Utah to “drop the charges against” Mindock in a state district court case in Utah. The email stated: “If you do not use your influence to right this wrong I will execute you and every other JEW [sic] I can find tonight at midnight of your Sabbath.” The email went on: “If you wish to communicate with me further, I will only meet in person,” listed an address for the sender in Tempe, and was signed “Shalom, Viktor Sitkevicz.”

The complaint alleges that Mindock’s address was listed in motor vehicle records as the same Tempe address listed in the email. The complaint further alleges that Mindock’s threatening behavior extended to another prior email threat to “hang” a judge sent from email addresses containing “sitkevicz” or “mindock,” and another threat made during a previous court appearance in 2021 to “execute” others.

“Civic engagement and civil dialogue help bind us together as a Nation,” said United States Attorney Gary Restaino. “We have no tolerance for those who send threatening communications to Jewish faith leaders or to any other people in America. We will continue to exercise our prosecutorial discretion and deploy our resources to charge threats cases here in Arizona.”

“The FBI takes all threats of violence seriously,” said Chad Alvarado, acting special agent in charge of the FBI’s Phoenix field office. “The FBI and our law enforcement partners must take people who make threats at their word and intervene, because protecting human life is our absolute priority.”

A complaint is simply a method by which a person is charged with criminal activity and raises no inference of guilt. An individual is presumed innocent until evidence is presented to a jury that establishes guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The United States will have up to 30 days from arrest to seek an indictment of Mindock.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted the investigation in this case, with assistance from the Tempe Police Department and the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. The United States Attorney’s Office, District of Arizona, is handling the prosecution.
 

CASE NUMBER:           23-05579MJ
RELEASE NUMBER:    2023-171_Mindock

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For more information on the U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Arizona, visit http://www.justice.gov/usao/az/
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