DENVER – Police in Colorado have arrested a 32-year-old man suspected of sending envelopes containing white powder, later deemed harmless, and at least one threatening message to a Jewish community center and synagogue, authorities said on Friday.
The Boulder Jewish Community Center, which has a preschool, was evacuated after one letter was found with a note reading: “your (sic) have enemies,” police said at the time. Another envelope with white powder was opened at Boulder’s Congregation Har HaShem synagogue.
A chemical analysis determined the white powder was either corn starch or white flour or a combination of the common baking ingredients, authorities said. No one was hurt in either incident, which occurred during the Jewish holiday of Passover on April 6.
The Boulder County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement that forensic evidence from the letters led detectives to Jeffrey Klinkel, who was arrested on Thursday on two counts each of felony menacing, explosive or biological hoax, and interference with an educational facility.
Klinkel is being held in jail with a bond of $10,000, and was arrested following a joint investigation conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Boulder Police Department. Online jail records did not list an attorney for Klinkel.
The letters were received in Boulder a month after a Missouri white supremacist pleaded not guilty to capital murder charges in last April’s fatal shooting of three people outside two Jewish centers in a Kansas City suburb.
