Cornell student Patrick Dai confessed to making online threats against Jews on campus after FBI traced his IP address

• Dai, 21, was booked into Broome County jail by US Marshals at 8.16pm last night
• He is due to go before a federal judge in Syracuse this morning
• His parents say he is suicidal and not in control of his emotions but that he is innocent 
• Investigators traced his IP address from the forum where threats were made  

Cornell student Patrick Dai confessed to making heinous threats against Jews after FBI agents traced his IP address to campus and his hometown. 

Dai was booked into the Broome County Sheriff’s Department yesterday on behalf of US Marshals. He is due to appear in federal court in Syracuse this morning. 

Last week, in a series of posts on the Greekrank forum, he threatened to shoot, stab and kill ‘pig Jews’, referring to himself as ‘Hamas’. 

The threats rattled the campus, closing the kosher dining hall out of fear for student safety. 

Patrick Dai, 21, was booked into the Broome County Jail last night. He will appear in a federal court in Syracuse this morning 

Dai confessed to an FBI agent after being read his Miranda rights, according to the complaint

Dai was arrested last night at his off-campus apartment after FBI agents traced two IP addresses he used while posting in the forum. 

One was at Cornell and the other was in Pittsford, where he grew up. 

Now, he is in custody in Broome County, New York, awaiting his first court appearance before a federal judge. If convicted, he faces up to five years in prison and fines of $250,000. 

While his parents claim he is innocent, telling The New York Post he is ‘depressed’ and ‘did not commit the crime’, he confessed once in custody. 

‘Dai admitted, after receiving Miranda warnings, that he was the person who used the internet to post the threatening messages described above,’ the complaint reads. 

The posts included calls for Palestine to be freed, and threats to target ‘104 West’ – the Cornell campus Center for Jewish Living. 

Of the several messages left on the school’s Greekrank page – a forum meant for fraternity and sorority reviews – were messages with the headlines ‘Eliminate Jewish living from Cornell Campus’ or ‘Israel deserved 10/7’

In addition to his Cornell IP address, FBI agents also traced some of the posts Dai made on the forum to Pittsford, a Rochester suburb, where he grew up. Above, his childhood home

According to his parents, Dai (as a nine-year-old, above), was ‘not in control of his emotions’ 

Dai confessed to an FBI agent after being read his Miranda rights, according to the complaint

‘Gonne shoot up 104 west. allahu akbar! from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free! glory to hamas! liberation by any means necessary!’ read one of his posts from October 29. 

He wrote under the username ‘kill jews’ [sic]. 

In others, he wrote: ‘Watch out Jews, jihad is coming.’ 

It’s unclear what prompted his hatred or threats. 

His father said that he was so depressed the family feared he was suicidal, and that his mother was driving to Cornell to check on him when he was arrested. 

‘My son is in severe depression. He cannot control his emotion well due to the depression,’ his father, a professor at a university in China, told the Post. 

According to the family, he had taken time out from his studies to deal with his mental health, but had returned to campus recently. 

New York Governor Kathy Hochul was among those who called for his arrest. 

A New York State Police Department cruiser is parked in front of Cornell University’s Center for Jewish Living, in Ithaca, NY, Monday, Oct 30, 2023

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