A Georgia man has been arrested and charged with making terrorist threats against US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and his family, in a case that has sent shockwaves through the American Jewish community.
According to an indictment filed September 25, 2026, in federal court in the Northern District of Georgia, the suspect, Jonathan Mark Sosor, posted a detailed threat on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) on July 28, demanding that Hegseth carry out a shooting attack at a Chabad synagogue and threatening to murder his family members if he refused.
"If you strap a GoPro to your head yourself and purge a Chabad synagogue with your service rifle, you'll get away with it, Pete Hegseth," the indictment quotes the suspect as writing. "Otherwise, your entire family will be killed down to the last one."
The reference to a GoPro camera is particularly chilling given that Hamas terrorists who participated in the Simchas Torah massacre used cameras of this type to document their atrocities and broadcast them live.
According to a report on JNS, this was not the only time Sosor's account posted threats against the defense secretary. The account had previously published additional threats to harm Hegseth and his family, alongside photographs of the secretary and his children.
At the time the threat was posted, Sosor was in Fulton County, Georgia, while Hegseth was in Washington, DC. During questioning, Sosor admitted to law enforcement that he was the one who posted the message, according to court documents.
The suspect was arrested September 25 by Alpharetta, Georgia, police and faces multiple serious charges. According to Fulton County jail records, Sosor is charged with three counts of disseminating information related to terrorism via computer, one count of terroristic communication, one count of stalking, and three counts of terroristic threats.
In addition, he faces a federal charge of transmitting a threat in interstate commerce. He is being held on $10,000 bond.
Court records reveal that the suspect has an extensive criminal history in recent years. An individual with the same name and description, in the same county, was previously arrested for assault and domestic violence in 2023, domestic violence and assaulting a police officer in 2024, and terroristic threats, aggravated assault, and trespassing in 2025.
Following the current threat against Chabad, the Secure Community Network (SCN) and the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta issued a security alert to Jewish institutions. After a joint assessment by the Federation, SCN, and law enforcement, it was determined that there is no credible ongoing threat to the Jewish community related to the incident. Nevertheless, Jewish institutions were urged to remain vigilant and report suspicious activity to police.
Crown Heights Info reported that members of the Chabad community noted that synagogues and Chabad houses across the United States serve as prominent centers of Jewish life, and therefore may be targets for these kind of threats.
The arrest comes at a time of heightened concern about antisemitic threats against Jewish institutions across the United States. Federal prosecutors in Georgia have recently filed several cases involving alleged online and telephone threats against Jews and Jewish organizations.
