A Mahoning County man was charged in federal court with making threats against a Jewish community center in Youngstown.

James P. Reardon, 20, of New Middletown, was charged in U.S. District Court with one count of transmitting threatening communications via interstate commerce. The investigation is ongoing.

According to the criminal complaint filed in the case:

New Middletown police contacted the FBI on August 16, 2019, after being made aware of a video posted on Instagram page by user “ira_seamus.” The video depicted Reardon holding an assault rifle. It began with Reardon stating “(expletive) a life.” He then held the rifle in multiple firing positions with audio of gunshots and sound effects of sirens and people screaming added into the background, according to the complaint.

The video also had a caption that stated: “ira_seamus Police identified the Youngstown Jewish Family Community shooter as local white nationalist Seamus O'Rearedon". The video is shown to be tagged at the Jewish Community Center of Youngstown, according to the complaint.

New Middletown police officers showed federal agents on August 16, 2019, other videos in which Reardon was depicted, including: a National Geographic documentary in which Reardon was at the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in August 2017 and an Instagram video posted by Reardon in which he discharges two rounds of ammunition into a cover of a video while making a remark about “Jewish media.”

Members of law enforcement executed a search warrant at Reardon’s residence later that day. Upon entering the basement, investigators observed several firearms and clothing articles that were observed in Reardon’s Instagram video postings, including: an MP-40 sub-machine gun like the one depicted in the video; an AR-15 assault rifle; numerous Nazi World War II propaganda posters; a rifle bayonet; a Hitler Youth Knife; and vintage U.S. military equipment, according to the complaint.

Reardon pulled up to the residence while officers were executing the search warrant and was arrested without incident.

“The Constitution affords citizens many rights, but it does not allow people to threaten others with violence,” U.S. Attorney Justin Herdman said. “Law enforcement will continue to work together to thwart those who threaten people based on their religion, race or national origin. We don’t go to war with people who break the law, we arrest them and send them to prison.”

“In today's environment, shootings in public places, churches and schools have occurred too often,” said FBI Special Agent in Charge Eric B. Smith. “Law enforcement must react swiftly to threats of violence.  This defendant’s video demonstrated that he had access to weapons and he posed a threat to a Jewish community center.  Law enforcement cannot wait to see if a shooting is going to occur, law enforcement must act quickly within the confines of the law to disrupt any potential violent act.  The public is reminded -- if you see something, say something.” 

If convicted, the defendant’s sentence will be determined by the Court after review of factors unique to this case, including the defendant’s prior criminal record, if any, the defendant’s role in the offense and the characteristics of the violation.  In all cases, the sentence will not exceed the statutory maximum and in most cases it will be less than the maximum.

This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Mahoning Valley Violent Crimes Task Force and the New Middletown Police Department. It is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys David Toepfer and Yasmine Makridis.

A charge is only an allegation and is not evidence of guilt.  A defendant is entitled to a fair trial in which it will be the government’s burden to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Remarks as prepared announcing federal criminal charges against James Reardon:

Good morning. Thank you for coming today and thank you to all of the local police chiefs who are here.  Special thanks to Chief D’Egidio who drove here from New Middletown.

We are here to announce the unsealing of a federal complaint against James Reardon, age 20, of New Middletown, Ohio.  He is charged with one count of making threats using a facility of interstate commerce.

Federal rules give us a few weeks before seeking an indictment in the Grand Jury and we will continue to use that time to further our investigation of Mr. Reardon’s conduct and to determine if others were involved.  In just a moment, Special Agent Eric Smith of the FBI will detail the facts uncovered in our investigation thus far.

I want to start by thanking the community. This case is the result of a concerned citizen who took the time to point out Mr. Reardon’s social media activity to a New Middletown Police Officer. This case is just one of several over the past few weeks that are the product of our friends and neighbors seeing something, and then saying something.

For example, a few weeks ago, Timothy Ireland was indicted on firearms and threat charges after a private citizen alerted law enforcement. And at the beginning of this month, Vincent Armstrong pleaded guilty to charges related to a planning an attack on a bar in Toledo. That case started with a tip from a concerned citizen to Toledo police.  There are several more examples and they illustrate the fact that these type of cases rely on very two important people – a concerned citizen and a responsive law enforcement officer.  Fortunately, we have both of those in abundance in northern Ohio.

I want to thank the men and women who make up our police departments, and some of their leadership are here today. As I said, tips only matter if police officers take them seriously and investigate them thoroughly. The presence of our local law enforcement highlights the message that police officers are trained to be responsive to information from the public, and the officers assigned to these departments – and many others – will do just that when confronted with credible and specific threats.  I also want to thank the FBI and ATF agents who joined with the police in each of these cases and bring outstanding expertise to these investigations.

Now let me speak generally to those who are advocates for white supremacy, or white nationalism.  I am talking directly to you.  The Constitution protects your right to speak, your right to think, and your right to believe. If you want to waste the blessings of liberty by going down a path of hatred and failed ideologies, that is your choice. 

Democracy allows you to test those ideas in the public forum.  If you want to submit your beliefs to the American people and get their reaction, please be my guest.  Keep this in mind, though.  Thousands and thousands of young Americans already voted with their lives to ensure that this same message of intolerance, death, and destruction would not prevail - you can count their ballots by visiting any American cemetery in North Africa, Italy, France, or Belgium and tallying the white headstones.  You can also recite the many names of civil rights advocates who bled and died in opposing supporters of those same ideologies of hatred.  Their voices may be distant, but they can still be heard.

Go ahead and make your case for Nazism, a white nation, and racial superiority.  The Constitution may give you a voice, but it doesn’t guarantee you a receptive audience. 

Your right to free speech does not automatically mean that people will agree with you.  In fact, you have an absolute God-given and inalienable right to be on the losing end of this argument.

What you don’t have, though, is the right to take out your frustration at failure in the political arena by resorting to violence.  You don’t have any right to threaten the lives and well-being of our neighbors.  They have an absolute God-given and inalienable right to live peacefully, to worship as they please, to be free from fear that they might become a target simply because of the color of their skin, the country of their birth, or the form of their prayer.

Threatening to kill Jewish people, gunning down innocent Latinos on a weekend shopping trip, planning and plotting to perpetrate murders in the name of a nonsense racial theory, sitting to pray with God-fearing people who you execute moments later - those actions don’t make you soldiers, they make you criminals.  Law enforcement doesn’t go to war with cowards who break the law, we arrest them and send them to prison. 

As I said, this case was made by a concerned member of the public and a responsive police officer.  That’s all it takes to stop you.  The men and women of our community are allied with law enforcement.  And every single member of law enforcement took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.  Many of us have taken that oath several times - as police officers, federal agents, prosecutors, military members, and elected officials. 

Together, we represent the absolute best of what America has to offer.  Our skin is every color you can imagine, our families come from a hundred different countries and a hundred different faiths.  What makes us different doesn’t split us apart, though.  Those differences are insignificant compared to what is the same about us - we are united in our commitment to each other, to our families, and to our communities.  We are the living embodiment of everything you say is impossible.

Together, we are united to ensure that you commit no further acts of violence in the name of your beliefs.  When you wake up tomorrow morning, no matter what time, I want you to remember something.  You can’t set your alarm clock early enough to beat us out of bed.  The men and women of law enforcement don’t wake up.  We never went to sleep.  We are always awake.  And arm in arm with the public, when your hatred leads you to break the law, we will do everything we can to be there to stop you.