20-year-old man does not plead guilty to video threat at Jewish center



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STRUTHERS, Ohio (AP) – A 20-year-old man pleaded not guilty Monday for threatening a Jewish community center in a video that authorities said showed him shooting with a semi-automatic rifle. automatic.

A judge near Youngstown set a $ 250,000 bond on James Reardon, ordered him an assessment of his mental health condition and told him to stay away from churches and Jewish organizations. he was released from prison.

Police arrested Reardon on Saturday for harassing telecommunications and escalating menacing accusations the day after a Jewish organization made contact with the authorities.

Ammunition, semi-automatic weapons, a gas mask and antisemitic information were found in a house in New Middleton where he lives with his mother, police said.

New Middletown police said the video posted on Reardon's Instagram account last month contained siren sounds and shouted with the caption: "The police identified the shooter in the Jewish family community of Youngstown as the local white nationalist Seamus O'Rearedon. "

The Post labeled the Youngstown Jewish Community Center.

The Jewish Federation of the Youngstown area said it discovered the threat on Friday and alerted the police and the FBI. The organization said it later learned that "ira_seamus" was an online pseudonym of James Reardon.

"I want to emphasize that we are not aware of any other threat to the Jewish community or to any of our organizations," said Andy Lipkin, executive vice president of the federation. "" Nevertheless, I ordered that we maintain the extra level of security in the near future. "

Reardon was brought to trial by video in Struthers City Court.

A message asking for comment was left to his lawyer. There was no answer to a phone number for his mother and a man who answered the number indicated for his father hung up.

Media in Youngstown reported that Reardon attended the White Nationalist Rally of 2017, which escalated into violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.

New Middletown Police Chief Vince D'egidio told WFMJ-TV that Reardon had published several videos in which he used disparaging remarks about the Jewish and African-American communities.

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