Man Jailed For Threats Against NPR Hosts

MARCH 16--A Maine man has been jailed on federal charges that he threatened to kill or harm two of the hosts of “All Things Considered,” the popular National Public Radio news program, The Smoking Gun has learned.

The defendant in custody, John Crosby, was arrested in late-January by FBI agents and named last month in a three-count felony indictment filed in U.S. District Court in Portland. The case against Crosby, 38, has not been publicized by the Department of Justice, nor has it been reported by NPR.

Crosby, whose rap sheet includes separate convictions for robbery and heroin possession, has been held without bail since his January 26 arrest inside a library at the University of Southern Maine, from which he graduated in 2009. During a search of Crosby’s Volvo station wagon following his bust, FBI agents found a shotgun and shells in the vehicle, according to court records.

Crosby, who graduated with a degree in electrical engineering, is pictured above in a United States Marshals Service mug shot taken after his January arrest.

In a filing yesterday, federal prosecutors opposed Crosby’s motion for a temporary release from custody so that he can attend a memorial service for his father. Government lawyers cited Crosby’s “history of violence” and noted that threatening communications he has been charged with sending “indicate that the defendant may suffer from psychiatric problems.”

According to an affidavit sworn by FBI Agent Nathan Jacobs, Crosby sent more than 20 bizarre, and often threatening, messages to NPR via a “Contact Us” form on the organization’s web site. Many of the messages--which were sent during a two-month period ending with Crosby’s arrest--“referenced ‘kikes’ and contained other generalized threats directed toward NPR,” Jacobs noted.

But it was a January 17 message that prompted NPR officials to contact federal investigators. In that communication, Crosby allegedly threatened to kill “All Things Considered” host Melissa Block, whom he described as “an annoying <unt who is helping to destroy me to use me as a human sacrifice. She will be raped, beaten, tortured, and murdered very soon.” Agents traced the threat to an IP associated with a Starbucks location on Congress Street in Portland.

In a January 23 communication sent via the NPR web site, Crosby referred to Guy Raz, the weekend host of “All Things Considered.” The message--purportedly from someone with the e-mail address [email protected] that, “I will remind Mr. Raz that 100 years ago a kike like him would have been hanging from a tree for disrespecting my privacy like that.” Crosby then allegedly added, “If I can make it to DC, I will try to find the kike and take care of business.”

Referring to the messages directed at Block and Raz (who are pictured above), Crosby’s indictment charges him with two counts of “transmitting threatening communications in interstate commerce.” The third charge accuses him of unlawful possession of a firearm.

FBI agents traced many of the NPR threats to IP addresses associated with the University of Southern Maine. Records maintained by the school indicated that the computer used in late-January to send 12 of the communications to NPR “was registered on USM’s network” by Crosby.

After the FBI arrested Crosby and seized his laptop, Agent Christopher Peavey asked him “if he knew why we were there,” Jacobs reported. “Crosby responded, ‘I have been trying to get your attention for a while.” The suspect subsequently asked another agent “whether they had read all of the e-mails he had been sending,” Jacobs noted. (9 pages)