Justice Department to Prosecute Israeli-American Teen Who Masterminded Wave of Threats Against Jewish Institutions

Israeli media cannot publish a photo of Michael Kaydar (NY Daily News)

The Justice Department has filed criminal charges against Michael Kaydar, the 19 year-old Israeli-American accused of orchestrating a wave of hundreds of phone threats against Jewish communal institutions across the U.S.  The calls threatened Jewish community centers and schools with bombs exploding, and it paralyzed Jewish institutions for months.

Despite an intensive investigation by the FBI, they were unable to crack the case till the suspect made a mistake and forgot to mask one of the threatening calls by using a proxy server to disguise his location.  This enabled authorities to track him to Israel.  From there, Israeli police began a manhunt and eventually discovered a large external antenna attached to his roof, which he was using to generate the phone calls.

He was arrested last month by Israeli police.  Curiously, all news of the case ceased in the Israeli press.  I found this exceedingly strange.  Today, the other shoe dropped when Justice announced it had filed cases in both Georgia and Florida.  But Israeli media has continued its silence (they also can’t publish any images of his face for some odd reason).  I’m guessing this means Kaydar will be extradited to the U.S. to stand trial.

Though I’m not a lawyer, I do know that criminal suspects are almost always prosecuted in the jurisdiction in which the crime originated and/or where the suspect lives.  That would mean Israel itself should have first dibs on the case.  Only in the rarest of cases (if at all) would Israel transfer one of its own citizens to a foreign jurisdiction if the crime itself originated in Israel and the citizen lived there.

My strong suspicion is that this case involved a deal between Netanyahu and Trump.  The latter earlier made a laughingstock of himself regarding these threats.  At one point, he even accused the Jewish community of engaging in a false flag attack to embarrass him.  Prosecuting Kaydar here in the U.S. will show American Jewish leaders that he’s trying to make up for his previous bumbling.  If he can put Kaydar away it will show that he’s fighting anti-Semitism effectively (in Trump’s mind at least).

Bibi would be only too happy to get the suspect off his hands.  He knows he will need major favors down the road from Trump.  So why not give up Kaydar, put a feather in Trump’s cap, and reap the rewards at a date to be determined??

What is most strange about this case is that Kaydar is Jewish and American originally.  No one understands what his motive was for this campaign.  His lawyer has intimated that he’s had a brain tumor for several years which caused strange behavior.  Or was it the prank of a bored teenage geek seeking attention?  Israeli police have been absolutely mum.