Man who threatened two Mass. synagogues and the Israeli consulate in Boston set to be sentenced

Boston Globe

a day ago

The 60-year-old Reardon
Prosecutors from US Attorney for Massachusetts Leah B. Foley's office are asking that Reardon be imprisoned for 30 months, citing lasting emotional harm to some victims who have not returned to their synagogues, and his arrest by Upton police in April for twice threatening staff at rental storage facility.
'In communications made to the synagogues and the Consulate, Reardon threatened to bomb Jewish places of worship,
kill Jewish children, and stomp Jewish babies dead into the ground,' federal prosecutors wrote. 'He also invoked Holocaust methods of genocide.'
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In court papers, Reardon's public defender Jessica P. Thrall said the threats Reardon made to the synagogues were 'terrifying, deeply hurtful, and will cause lasting fear in the victims.'
Thrall wrote that Reardon was fueled by mental illness and 24-hour-news coverage of the first weeks of the war in Gaza, not because he is a neo-Nazi.
At the time of the threats, Reardon was depressed, had stopped taking his psychiatric medicine, and spent hours in huddled in his motel room obsessively watching coverage about Gaza, according to Thrall.
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The combination of his mental illness — which often manifested itself in shouted threats and angry telephone calls — without a history of antisemitism justifies leniency, she wrote. He also admitted his guilt and is deeply remorseful, she wrote.
'What makes this crime unique as compared to the many other threats [prosecutions] brought after similar conduct was directed at synagogues or other Jewish community centers, is that Mr. Reardon has absolutely no history of association with white supremacist or neo-Nazi organizations,' she wrote. 'His record demonstrates that when his mental health is strained, he acts out verbally with phone calls, threats, or the escalation of disputes.'
Reardon should be imprisoned for nine months followed by five years of supervised release, she wrote.
'What Mr. Reardon did forever haunts him – he picked up the phone and started making calls...and left horrific voice mails," she wrote. 'His choice to make all of the calls and threats came directly from watching the conflict in Israel play out on national television.'
Prosecutors said the Israeli consulate increased security as a result of Reardon's calls and staffers requested escorts when leaving the office. Some members of the Sharon and Attleboro synagogues have not returned.
Reardon 'engaged in egregious and vile crimes that traumatized the employees and members of the Attleboro and Sharon synagogues and the employees of the Israeli Consulate in Boston. He chose to harass and threaten these victims because they were Jewish,' prosecutors wrote.
His arrest by Upton police for threatening staff at the rental facility shows Reardon cannot control his behavior, prosecutors wrote. A lengthy sentence will also deter others from committing similar hate crimes, prosecutors argued.
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'In the phone and internet age, people can level serious threats of violence with the click of a button. Antisemitic incidents have skyrocketed in recent years,' prosecutors wrote. 'The criminal justice system cannot solve antisemitism or almost any other problem on its own, but neither can it shrug its shoulders helplessly.'
US District Court Judge Julia E. Kobick will determine Reardon's sentence at the hearing Thursday.
Reardon was released on personal bond last year, but was put in pre-trial detention in April following the Upton arrest, records show.
John R. Ellement can be reached at