The Justice Department on Wednesday indicted eight young anti-Israel activists, most of them University of Michigan students or graduates, for what prosecutors describe as a criminal conspiracy "to terrorize government officials, businesses, and the Jewish Federation" of metropolitan Detroit. The defendants allegedly discussed plans to poison, bomb, and psychologically torture their targets, and carried out nighttime chemical attacks on the homes of university administrators.
The indictments land squarely on a campus that spent the better part of two years tolerating escalating anti-Israel protests, encampments, and building occupations while critics accused its leadership of looking the other way. Federal prosecutors are no longer content to let university disciplinary committees handle what they say was a coordinated campaign of intimidation and violence.
The eight defendants are not fringe drifters. They are college-educated researchers, medical students, and recent graduates of elite institutions. And the evidence outlined in the federal indictment, intercepted messages discussing hit lists, arson, and slow-acting poison, reads less like campus activism and more like a domestic terror plot hatched in seminar rooms and group chats.
The conspiracy began taking shape shortly after Hamas's October 7, 2023, terror attack on Israel, the Washington Free Beacon reported. The defendants publicly posted a series of demands to UM leadership calling for financial divestment from Israel. When the university did not comply, the group made clear it felt compelled to "escalate, mobilize, and organize to demand divestment by any means necessary," federal prosecutors stated.
The defendants collected "personal addresses, photographs, political and social connections, business ownership, and other personal details" of their targets. Those targets included university officials, local businesses, and the Jewish Federation of Detroit.
Jennifer Runyan, the special agent in charge of the FBI Detroit Field Office, described the alleged tactics:
"In the dead of night, masked and hooded defendants allegedly threw noxious chemicals through the windows of families' homes and taped demand letters to their front doors. At every step they attempted to cover their tracks and delete evidence of their crimes."
The feds did not specify which chemicals were used.
The most disturbing details center on two defendants: Paige Elizabeth Feyock, 26, a UM medical researcher and Wellesley College graduate, and Ahmet Kerem Korkaya, 28, a medical student in Wisconsin who previously worked as a researcher at the University of Michigan. On May 21, 2024, the pair allegedly discussed plans to "kill," "torment," and "terrorize" their targets and the targets' families.
Korkaya said his "entire family" was on his "hit list," referring to one victim. Feyock added that they should "get" the "kids" of two other victims. Korkaya then stated of another target: "I'm gonna be the dirtiest f***ing doctor ever / I'm gonna be [the victim's] doctor / poison her a** slowly." Feyock agreed, adding: "We need people following [the victim] / get into that house then burn it down."
Korkaya had the scientific background to act on the threat. He holds an MS in biomolecular science from Augusta University and a BS in biomedical engineering from Georgia Tech. His public profile on the Medical College of Wisconsin's website says he worked at UM from 2023 to 2024, "screening small molecule inhibitors and degraders for therapeutic impact on various cancers." Prosecutors allege he aided in creating the noxious chemicals used in the attacks on university officials' homes.
Two defendants, Feyock and 23-year-old Zainab Aliasgar Hakim, face additional witness intimidation charges that could carry up to 20 years in prison. In July and August 2024, the pair allegedly devised a plan to confront a UM student they believed was cooperating with federal investigators.
Hakim warned that the student was "going to send us to federal prison." Feyock responded bluntly: "We have to do something about [the victim] / [the victim] is actually a liability / the fact that [the victim] is naming you to [unindicted conspirator] is a major issue." She told her co-conspirators that she and Hakim would "strip search" the student for a wire. After confronting the unidentified individual, Feyock allegedly said the person "knows not to talk."
That is not protest. That is obstruction and intimidation of the kind federal prosecutors typically associate with organized criminal enterprises.
The defendants were not operating in the shadows, at least not entirely. Several had prominent public roles in the anti-Israel movement at UM.
Hakim completed her undergraduate degree at UM in 2024, earning a Bachelor of Arts in History of Art, Women's and Gender Studies, with a minor in Islamic Studies. In March 2024, she interrupted UM president Santa Ono during an Honors Convocation, unfurling a banner reading "Divest Now" and shouting that "Ono and regents" were "funding genocide." She also helped maintain the university's pro-Hamas encampment. UM hired her for a full-time position in October 2024 but fired her earlier this year for violating its "Violence in the University Community" guidelines.
Feyock participated in a high-profile sit-in at UM's Ruthven Hall in November 2023, just one month after the Hamas attack, an action that prompted police intervention.
Mariam Muhammed Odeh, 24, another recent UM graduate named in the indictment, appeared outside President Ono's house in March with roughly 150 other protesters. She accused Israel of "genocide" and told the Michigan Daily: "The war machine has once again flooded our screens with unbearable images: children wrapped in white shrouds, parents screaming in agony, entire families wiped out in an instant."
Two current UM undergraduates, Alexander Matthew Sepulveda, 23, and Jonathan Hongru Zou, 22, allegedly carried out a direct attack on UM provost Laurie McCauley's home. They threw "two glass jars filled with a blue substance and food compost through a window" and spray-painted the home with "inverted red triangles and phrases including 'Divest' and 'Free Palestine.'" Before law enforcement executed a search warrant at Sepulveda's home in April 2025, he allegedly tried to erase evidence on his phone and laptop.
Sepulveda, a member of "Jewish Voices for Peace," served as a public face of the UM Diag encampment. In a remarkable bit of timing, the Michigan Daily published an op-ed by Sepulveda on June 9, one day before the indictment was revealed, in which he accused the university of exploiting foreign garment industry workers.
The University of Michigan drew sustained criticism over the past two years for what many saw as a permissive stance toward escalating anti-Israel protests and open antisemitism on campus. Building occupations, encampments, and confrontations with officials became a recurring feature of campus life. Local police and university administrators struggled, or declined, to draw clear lines.
The federal indictment now makes plain what that permissiveness allowed to fester. The defendants posted evidence of their own crimes on the one-year anniversary of the October 7 attack, including photos of a defaced Jewish Federation building and vandalized local businesses. They compiled dossiers on targets. They discussed killing children. And they allegedly attacked administrators' homes with chemical agents.
The Jewish Federation of Detroit noted that many of the threats "directly" referenced "the Hamas-led terror attack" and appeared inspired by the terror group.
"We are grateful to law enforcement for pursuing this investigation with the seriousness it demands, and we look forward to seeing justice served, sending a clear message that hate, intimidation and antisemitic violence have no place in our community or in our country."
U.S. Attorney Jerome Gorgon framed the prosecution in unmistakable terms:
"In America, we rule by law not by fear. These alleged threats and attempts to terrorize government officials, businesses, and the Jewish Federation are anti-American. We will counter intimidation with justice."
The indictments represent an escalation in the Trump administration's crackdown on violent, far-left extremism, a category of threat that many universities, local prosecutors, and media outlets spent years minimizing or reclassifying as mere protest. The defendants in this case are not disadvantaged youth swept up in a moment. They are researchers, medical students, and graduates of Wellesley and Georgia Tech who allegedly discussed poisoning people, burning homes, and intimidating witnesses.
For two years, the adults in charge at too many elite campuses treated this kind of conduct as a speech issue, a policy disagreement, or a matter for the DEI office. Federal prosecutors are treating it as what it plainly is: a criminal conspiracy.
When universities refuse to enforce their own rules, somebody eventually has to. The FBI just did.
