FBI charges Elizabeth man with making antisemitic threats against public official

The FBI on Thursday charged an Elizabeth man with making online antisemitic threats against a “local” public official.

Edward Arthur Owens Jr., 29, is charged with a single felony count of making an interstate threat.

He is being held in federal custody pending a detention hearing on June 5. The government asserts that Owens poses a danger to the community.

His attorney declined to comment on Friday.

Authorities did not name the public official or identify the community where the person works.

According to a criminal complaint, which was unsealed Friday, the official received a threat via a private Facebook Messenger account on May 20 from the screen name “Casey Jones.”

It read: “We’re coming for you (emoji of person raising right hand) (German flag emoji) be afraid. Go back to Israel or better yet, exterminate yourself and save us the trouble. 109 countries for a reason. We will not stop until your kind is nonexistent,” the criminal complaint said.

The reference to 109 countries is “an antisemitic claim that Jews have been expelled from 109 different countries,” according to the Anti-Defamation League, the complaint said.

According to the affidavit, the official did not read the message until May 22 and reported it to law enforcement.

On May 23, the FBI issued an emergency request to Meta, the social media company that owns Facebook Messenger, for subscriber information for the screen name associated with the threat. The next day, the complaint said, the information was returned, including email and IP addresses for that screen name.

Those tracked to the house where Owens lives, the complaint said.

In an initial interview with Owens on May 25, the complaint said, he denied sending the message and said his account must have been hacked.

However, he later said that wasn’t the case.

“After confronting Owens with information regarding IP addresses associated with his Facebook account, Owens stated that he must have been ‘blackout drunk’ and acknowledged the message was sent from his account and said he should take responsibility for the message, even though he did not recall sending it,” the complaint said.

Then, after the interview ended, Owens approached the agents and said he wanted to take responsibility “because he was a drunk,” according to the complaint.

Owens denied knowing the victim or harboring ill will toward any group of people.

A person who lives with Owens said they they spent the evening with him on May 20 and did not observe him to be drunk, the FBI said.

“Witness 1 confirmed Owens has antisemitic views and has previously said ‘upsetting things’ concerning Jewish people,” the complaint said. “Witness 1 stated that Owens’ antisemitic comments were not frequent at first; however, his comments were becoming more frequent. For example, Owens made statements to Witness 1 such as ‘Jews control everything’ and ‘Jews control the news.’ At one point, while watching a video of Adolf Hitler, Owens turned to Witness 1 and said, ‘He (Hitler) did not do anything wrong.”

Owens previously sent the witness antisemitic content on social media, according to the complaint, which said Owens follows local politics.

The day after agents interviewed Owens, he called and left a voicemail apologizing for his behavior, the complaint said.

In the message, Owens said, “I need to take responsibility, and I just wanted to make sure that I reiterated that, and you know I do apologize. I’m not an extremist of any kind. I’m not part of any groups, I’m sure you’ll see that once you go through my phone.”

He continued: “I’m just a keyboard warrior as you put it, I, you know, when you, you get in those ways of getting rage baited on line and you know you just, you lash sometimes, and you say thing you don’t mean, and I, I really, really messed this one up. It not (sic) something that should ever be said, and it’s not something that I truly believe.”