Graduate Student Arrested for Hateful and Threatening Message at San Jose State University
Monday, July 13, 2026 - The Justice Department announced today that Ziheng “Tony” Fang was arrested on a federal charge of false information and hoaxes. Fang made an initial appearance on July 10, in federal court in San Jose, California.
According to the allegations in a criminal complaint and court documents filed on July 9, Fang, 30, of San Jose, California, wrote a hateful and threatening message placed in a plastic cover sheet taped to the bathroom wall of a men’s restroom on the campus of San Jose State University (SJSU). Fang is a graduate student at SJSU, pursuing his Master’s Degree in Data Science.
The message was discovered on Nov. 5, 2025, and began with “!WARNING! MASS BOMB NEXT WEEK,” among other statements, accompanied by multiple swastika symbols. A photograph of this message is below:
Photograph of the message discovered on Nov. 5, 2025
Fang’s fingerprint was found on this paper. A second message was also discovered on the wall of the same bathroom at the same time. It read “Kill all Jews, Muslims, Chinks, and Mexicans,” “Mass bombing 11/11 and 11/12 guess.”
As alleged in the complaint, since October 2024, SJSU Police Department personnel have recorded more than 20 instances of hateful and threatening messages written in men’s and gender-neutral restrooms around the SJSU campus. In many instances, these messages included threats specifying a particular date that an attack was allegedly intended to take place and/or weapons and methods that would be used such as bombs, knives, and shooting. The most recent hateful and threatening message was discovered on May 14.
Fang accessed buildings in the days leading up to the discovery of hateful and threatening messages in 16 of the 18 instances where key card access is required, according to the complaint. The next closest number of entries was from a SJSU staff member who worked with facilities and had a reason to be in each building. Surveillance footage also shows Fang entering and exiting the restrooms or restroom areas where some of the messages were written up to a day before their discovery.
According to the complaint, the SJSU President’s Office provided several email/text message alerts to notify students and staff before dates that attacks were allegedly set to take place. When alerts were issued, SJSU professors independently decided whether to cancel class or hold it virtually. University police and the college administration received multiple calls from people worried about coming onto campus because of the threats. Campus buildings on the dates specified in the messages were described as “ghost town,” as described in the complaint.
U.S. Attorney Craig H. Missakian for the Northern District of California, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, and Special Agent in Charge Scott Schelble of the FBI San Francisco Field Office made the announcement.
Fang is currently in federal custody. Fang is next scheduled to appear in federal court on July 13 for identification of counsel before Chief Magistrate Judge Nathanael Cousins.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah E. Griswold for the Northern District of California is prosecuting the case with the assistance of Trial Attorney Connor Cheadle of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. The prosecution is the result of an investigation by the FBI, with the assistance of the San Jose State University Police Department.
A criminal complaint is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
U.S. Department of Justice
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Source: Justice.gov
