{"id":215223,"date":"2026-06-10T04:17:06","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T04:17:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/215223\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T04:17:06","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T04:17:06","slug":"pittsburgh-area-man-sentenced-to-2-5-years-for-threatening-to-kill-jewish-official-jns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/215223\/","title":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh area man sentenced to 2.5 years for threatening to kill Jewish official | JNS"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Edward Arthur Owens Jr., 30, of Elizabeth, Pa., in the Pittsburgh area, was sentenced to 30 months in prison and three subsequent years of supervised release for threatening a public official and lying to government agents, the U.S. Justice Department <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/usao-wdpa\/pr\/elizabeth-man-sentenced-prison-making-antisemitic-threat-injure-public-official-and\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">said<\/a> on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>Owens, who pleaded guilty in January to threatening the unnamed Jewish official, had <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jns.org\/u.s.-news\/pennsylvania-man-pleads-guilty-to-threatening-to-kill-jewish-official\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">faced<\/a> a maximum sentence of five years in prison and $250,000 in fines.<\/p>\n<p>He used a social media app to tell the official that he should &#8220;go back to Israel or better yet, exterminate yourself and save us the trouble,&#8221; he admitted.<\/p>\n<p>The message also said that \u201cwe will not stop until your kind is nonexistent\u201d and used the phrase \u201c109 countries.\u201d The Justice Department said the latter was used by antisemites to claim that Jews have been expelled from 109 countries and to call for their continued expulsion.<\/p>\n<p>The judge said before sentencing that the Owens \u201ccreated real fear and trepidation\u201d and \u201ccaused the victim to have to change their way of living.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Today&#8217;s sentencing sends two strong and unequivocal messages,&#8221; stated Troy Rivetti, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFirst, it reaffirms that our community remains stronger than hate. Time and again, the people of this district have demonstrated an unwavering commitment to unity, resilience, safety and dignity for all,&#8221; Rivetti stated.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Second, it again shows that our office and our law enforcement partners at every level will continue to work side by side to ensure that individuals who commit crimes driven by hate\u2014who harm, threaten or attempt to intimidate others because of who they are\u2014will be held accountable to the fullest extent of federal law,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Edward Arthur Owens Jr., 30, of Elizabeth, Pa., in the Pittsburgh area, was sentenced to 30 months in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40223,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[43250,16062,94280,6313,6314,6303,24341,73,75,74,43251,43253,44,43252],"class_list":["post-215223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-anti-judaism","tag-antisemitism","tag-criticism-of-judaism","tag-ethnoreligious-groups","tag-jews-and-judaism","tag-judaism","tag-judaism-related-controversies","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-religious-discrimination","tag-strangers","tag-u-s-news","tag-xenophobia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}