Iowa man charged with making anti-Semitic threats against NYC Jewish group

An Iowa man who called himself “Garrett Odinschild” was charged Tuesday in Manhattan federal court with making anti-Semitic threats against a Jewish organization in New York in the name of a Nordic neo-Nazi movement.

“My people have [expletive] slaughtered your [expletive] people before and we will do it again,” the man, Garrett Kelsey, allegedly said in a voicemail. “And right now you are giving us incentive to do that. … Filthy [expletive] Jews.”

Prosecutors said Kelsey, 31, of Cedar Rapids, had been arrested in Iowa on charges of interstate transportation of threats, and was expected to appear before a federal magistrate there Tuesday. The government did not name the organization targeted.

According to a criminal complaint, the threats began in May with complaints by Kelsey about a video on Nordic neo-Nazis that the Jewish group had uploaded to the internet. He told the group in an email to remove it within three days and offer an apology to the “Asatru” community — identified as a Norse religious movement linked to anti-Semitism — and said if they did not, “we will be taking action against your organization full of degenerates.”

Agents said Kelsey was interviewed after the threats and linked to a Facebook account in the name of “Garrett Odinschild,” which had been used to send a threatening message to an Iowa Antifa group, referring to them as “commie fascist snowflakes.”

“I’m going to bash your skulls in without warning!” he allegedly wrote. “White is might! 1488! Hail Odin! Hail Asatru!” Antifa is a protest group on the political left, and 1488 is a numeric code used by white supremacists, prosecutors said.

After the interviews with law enforcement, prosecutors said Kelsey continued to use the Facebook account, posting a picture of Jewish residents of the Warsaw ghetto lined up against a wall for transfer to concentration camps during World War II.

“The alleged conduct is not protected speech,” said Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman. “As charged, the conduct — making interstate threats — is a federal crime.”

Kelsey faces up to 5 years in prison. His lawyer could not immediately be identified for comment.