FBI agents recently arrested a Lehighton man for making online threats toward Jewish people and other ethnic and religious groups.

Corbin Kauffman, 30, of Coal Street, faces a charge of interstate transmission of threats to injure the person of another, according to U.S. Attorney David J. Freed.

Kauffman was arrested by the FBI on March 30 and released April 4. Under conditions of his release he is prohibited from using the internet, and from possessing a phone with internet access.

He has also been charged with ethnic intimidation for allegedly posting anti-semitic grafitti on a trash can at the Weissport Canal Park.

Prosecutors said Kauffman used online aliases to post hundreds images, messages and videos which were anti-semitic, anti-black and anti-Muslim.

According to the warrant for his arrest, the charges resulted from a March 7 post on the social media site www.minds.com. Prosecutors said the post depicted of a notebook with a drawing of a swastika and a threat against Jews. The image was posted under the account name KingShekels.

Several of the posts included threats to religious and racial groups and one included a photoshopped image of Kauffman aiming an AR-15 rifle at a congregation of Jewish men.

In explaining why prosecutors took his threats seriously, Freed mentioned past mass shootings in Pittsburgh, New Zealand, and South Carolina which were motivated against a religious or ethnic group.

“Pennsylvanians know all too well how dangerous these kinds of white supremacist threats can be,” said U.S. Attorney Freed. “The last thing we want is to see another tragedy like we saw at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, or at Al Noor Mosque in Christchurch, or at Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston. We don’t know what might have happened, but we take these threats seriously, and I commend the FBI for their vigilance and quick action in this case.”

Pennsylvania State Police also filed an ethnic intimidation charges against Kauffman after he admitted to drawing antisemitic graffiti on a trash can at Weissport Canal Park.

A preliminary hearing on the charge filed by state police is scheduled for April 15.