December 20, 2012

(JTA) — The man Los Angeles police have arrested in for allegedly making fake bomb threats against a Los Angeles temple is also believed to have vandalized the synagogue earlier this month.

Several bomb threats against the Wilshire Boulevard Temple were called in to the Los Angeles Police Department Tuesday morning, on call said that there was a bomb planted in a car at an intersection near the synagogue.

Police investigated the threats and exploded a suspicious package left in a car adjacent to the synagogue, but the package was found not to contain explosives.

Wan Ryung Song, also known as Patrick Song, 46, was arrested later on Tuesday. Song is a naturalized U.S. citizen from South Korea. 

Song was charged with four counts of making a bomb threat, one count of vandalism at a house of worship, one count of a hate crime, according to the LA Times. His arrest was based largely on video footage from the synagogue’s surveillance cameras. He reportedly made all the bomb threat calls to police from the same pay phone located near the temple.

The temple, known as the oldest in Los Angeles, was vandalized on Dec. 6 with a swastika and anti-Semitic graffiti.
 

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