FBI: Tempe man accused of making violent threats against a Rabbi, Jewish community

PHOENIX - The FBI announced the arrest of a Tempe man who is accused of making a threat via email to "execute" a Rabbi and "every other JEW [sic] I can find tonight at midnight of your Sabbath."

Fifty-year-old Tempe man Jeffrey Mindock allegedly emailed a Rabbi at a Scottsdale synagogue on Nov. 3.

He's accused of asking the Rabbi to "try to convince" a Utah judge to "drop the charges against" him in a state district court case.

The email Mindock is said to have written reads, "If you do not use your influence to right this wrong I will execute you and every other JEW [sic] I can find tonight at midnight of your Sabbath. If you wish to communicate with me further, I will only meet in person."

The email listed a Tempe address and was signed "Shalom, Viktor Sitkevicz."

After some investigation, detectives linked Mindock back to that same Tempe address using state vehicle registration records.

"The complaint further alleges that Mindock’s threatening behavior extended to another prior email threat to ‘hang’ a judge sent from email addresses containing ‘sitkevicz’ or ‘mindock,’ and another threat made during a previous court appearance in 2021 to 'execute' others,'" the FBI said.

Jeffrey Mindock

Mindock is charged with crimes related to this incident, the FBI says.

"We have no tolerance for those who send threatening communications to Jewish faith leaders or to any other people in America. We will continue to exercise our prosecutorial discretion and deploy our resources to charge threats cases here in Arizona," United States Attorney Gary Restaino said.

The FBI investigated this case with the help of the Tempe Police Department and the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office.

You can find resources on how to stop antisemitism here: https://www.juf.org/stopantisemitism/