Editor’s note: We’ve covered this case from day one and have the most in-depth public record of it. Although court paperwork at times listed John Reardon as a Milford resident, records and interviews show he had most recently spent years living in Framingham as a long-term SMOC resident.
U.S. District Judge Julia E. Kobick on Thursday sentenced John Reardon, 60, to 26 months in federal prison for a months-long campaign of antisemitic threats targeting two Massachusetts synagogues and the Israeli Consulate in Boston. Reardon pleaded guilty on Nov. 25, 2024, to obstruction of the free exercise of religious beliefs by threat of force, transmitting an interstate threat, and stalking using a facility of interstate commerce.
According to prosecutors’ filings and the presentence report, Reardon left a January 25, 2024 voicemail for Congregation Agudas Achim in Attleboro threatening to bomb places of worship and warning that by “supporting the killing of innocent little children, that means it’s OK to kill your children.” Minutes later, he called a Sharon synagogue and threatened “the killing of all Jews” and “stomping their babies dead into the ground.” Investigators also documented 98 calls to the Israeli Consulate between Oct. 7, 2023 and late January 2024, including: “Time to prepare the furnaces again. I hope that you people are wiped off the face of the earth.” (Gov’t Sentencing Memo, filed Aug. 8, 2025.)
The government urged a 30-month sentence; the defense asked for nine months, citing mental-health history (Defense Sentencing Memo, Aug. 8, 2025). Judge Kobick imposed 26 months and adopted Probation’s guideline calculations, overruled the defense objection to a victim-related enhancement under § 3A1.1, and heard two victim statements in court (three were submitted). The sentence is 26 months on each of Counts 1–3, all concurrent; followed by supervised release of three years on Counts 2 and 3 and one year on Count 1, concurrent; no fine; $1,260 in restitution ($630 to each of two victims); and a $300 special assessment. The court also directed Probation to correct two PSR references that misstated a maximum term as “2” instead of 20 years, and reminded Reardon of his plea-based appeal waiver. The clerk entered the sentencing minutes and judgment on Aug. 14, and the case is now closed.
FURTHER READING
• In the Attleboro synagogue voicemail, prosecutors say Reardon threatened to “end Israel and all Jews” and warned, “don’t be surprised if there is pigs’ blood on your steps tomorrow.” (Gov’t Sentencing Memo, filed Aug. 8, 2025, citing PSR ¶¶ 13–14.)
• Minutes later, in the Sharon call, he escalated to “the killing of all Jews” and said he didn’t “have a problem with someone taking your baby and stomping it dead in the ground.” He also expressed a desire that Jews “starve” and “have no medical.” (Gov’t Sentencing Memo, PSR ¶ 18.)
• Temple Israel (Boston) calls, Oct.–Nov. 2023: While he was harassing the Israeli Consulate, Reardon also targeted Temple Israel in Boston. Between Oct. 10 and Nov. 14, 2023, he placed 11 calls to the synagogue, seven of which connected. An employee recalled at least one call as hostile; the calls were not recorded. (Gov’t Sentencing Memo, citing PSR ¶ 29.) The night before the January 2024 synagogue threats, Reardon also phoned a Millbury pig farm — an owner later said people “occasionally” call seeking pig blood — the same theme he invoked in voicemails. (Gov’t Sentencing Memo, citing PSR ¶¶ 23, 28.)
• The government says his months-long barrage at the Israeli Consulate included Holocaust invocations: “Time to prepare the furnaces again. I hope that you people are wiped off the face of the earth,” and the wish that “somebody wipes you the f*** off the planet.” He also returned to the “pig blood” theme: “Oh, tonight is Sabbath. It would be a great day to pour pork blood all around the synagogues.” (Gov’t Sentencing Memo, PSR ¶ 23.)
• Framingham Public Schools voicemails (2022): District officials said they received profanity-laced voicemails from Reardon demanding policy changes and turned recordings over to Framingham Police. Investigators linked those calls to the same 508-726-4333 number later used in the synagogue threats. (Direct transcripts were withheld at the time under the active-investigation exception.)
• Prosecutors told the judge that after his arrest and while on court-ordered release, Reardon again turned to threats — this time at a RightSpace Self Storage in Upton. According to the government (citing the PSR), he told an employee he would “f*** him up” and “threatened to blow up the storage facility.” U.S.
Probation ordered him on Feb. 27, 2025 not to contact the site; “Yet the very next day,” prosecutors wrote, “Reardon disobeyed this order by calling an employee of the storage facility.” Additional Upton Police case materials list exhibits — including a “REARDON VOICEMAIL” audio file — and Officer Bianca Nelson’s narrative of the Feb. 5 and Feb. 12 calls (threats to “fuck” the manager up, to “blow up” the facility, and to cut off the locks). U.S. Probation Officer Thomas Crawford confirmed Reardon’s Arbor Inn residence and that the renewed contact violated directives.
• SMOC housing & neighbor disputes (Framingham): Public filings and police reports show Reardon lived for years in SMOC housing on Pratt Street, where he clashed with neighbors and staff. In one documented incident, after a dispute over bathroom trash, he hit a neighbor’s door so hard it broke the lock and splintered the frame; another resident wrote that he “lived in fear of Reardon.” Reardon also battled SMOC in Housing Court over conditions in the units. Defense records further note he sought and received
therapy through SMOC for years, with formal treatment goals set in October 2021, and that he underwent two involuntary civil commitments (one following a 2016 bank incident and another in 2020).
• Personal stability & Arbor Inn (Wrentham): The defense says that since 2023 he rented a room at the Arbor Inn, owned by the Patel family; at times he bartered part of the rent by driving elderly relatives to medical appointments. Most of his belongings stayed in storage because they “cannot fit inside a motel room.” He tried gig work and sold items at flea markets a few times a month. Probation even covered several weeks of his rent shortly before his April 2025 detention.
• Restorative justice & remorse (2025): The defense memorandum says Reardon “carries tremendous shame and regret” and that “from the very moment of his arrest, Mr. Reardon has only wished to plead guilty, accept responsibility, and apologize to the victims.” It reports he completed the district’s two-part Restorative Justice program in March 2025, describing it as “deeply moving.”
• Sentencing filings & broken jail kiosk (Aug. 7–8, 2025): Defense obtained a one-day extension to file its memorandum because jail video consults failed “due to a broken kiosk within the defendant’s unit” at Plymouth County; both sides filed their sentencing papers on Aug. 8.
• AND… his earlier “serial-killer” boast: At a DCU branch in Marlborough in Oct. 2016, staff told police that Reardon said he already had “two kills” for a Halloween “serial killer” costume. Speaking to teller Y.S., he described his “first victim” as a would-be carjacker in South Boston — “I ran over him with my car…
backed over him multiple times” — and a second killing in Dorchester — he “struck [the man] with a steel pipe… in the throat, crushing his windpipe” — pantomiming the blows and telling her he needed her to be “my third victim.” (Marlborough/Framingham PD Report #1607614.) He even rehashed the murders in great detail and on the record to the Framingham Police, appearing in the associated reports. Boston Police Homicide and Middlesex DA’s Cold-Case Unit were notified; no homicide charges resulted, and the report recorded the statements as uncorroborated claims.