Crime
Matthew Scouras, 34, is facing 12 firearms charges and threat charges for his alleged posts on 4Chan.
A Beverly man is facing multiple firearms charges after federal authorities tipped off police that he allegedly incited others online to shoot Jewish people outside synagogues, police said.
Matthew Scouras, 34, is facing 12 counts of possession of a firearm without a license, illegal possession of ammunition, possession of a large capacity feeding device, improper storage of a firearm, and making of a firearm without a serial number, or a ghost gun, Beverly police announced Monday.
Due to his alleged comments about Jewish people on the website 4Chan, Scouras is also facing charges of threats to destroy a place of worship and willful communication of a threat with a firearm, police said.
The FBI National Threat Operation Center reported Scouras’s alleged comments to Beverly police on Thursday, according to a police report filed in Salem District Court. His posts on 4Chan included slurs for Jewish people and threatened to rape Jewish women, the report said.
Investigators singled out one post as the basis for the charges against him in the report. “If everyone just started shooting Jews at there (sic) synagogues all this can stop over night,” Scouras allegedly wrote.
“Scouras clearly threatened to destroy a synagogue or place of worship and appears to be enticing others via online chat to do the same,” Beverly police wrote in the report.
When asked about the posts in his bedroom, he at first was evasive but eventually said he bought the guns “legally online” and said his posts were his “personal beliefs and did not constitute an imminent threat,” the report said. He also said “rappers sing songs with lyrics like these posts all the time,” according to police.
Beverly police said they took Scouras into custody at his Essex Street home Thursday, and he was transported to the hospital for a mental health evaluation. Police also noted in their report that in 2013, Scouras made threats to “kill people cus I can’t handle this anymore.”
When police searched his room, they found a Nazi flag, a 9 mm Glock “ghost gun,” six boxes of ammunition, three large-capacity rifles, 11 lower receivers for rifles, scopes, pistol frames, rifle stocks, a jig used for drilling holes into pistol handles, and other firearm parts, Beverly police said. They also found more than $70,000 in cash, which police believe is proceeds of illegal firearm sales.
Due to a new Massachusetts law, each lower receiver is legally considered an additional gun, Beverly police said.
Scouras pleaded not guilty Monday and is being held at the Essex County House of Correction pending a dangerousness hearing Jan. 13.
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