A neo-Nazi leader from Florida and a woman with whom he had a personal relationship were charged by federal prosecutors with plotting to attack electrical substations around Baltimore and cripple the city, according to authorities this week.
In an unsealed federal criminal complaint, Sarah Beth Clendaniel, 34, of Catonsville, Maryland, and Brandon Clint Russell, 27, of Orlando, Fla., were officially charged with conspiracy to destroy an energy facility. Russell, in particular, was already well-known to authorities. Founder of the far-right extremist and terrorist group known as the Atomwaffen Division, he is currently on supervised release from a separate federal conviction related to possessing an unregistered destructive device. He has a sizable arrest record dating back to at least 2017.
Both defendants were arrested for this incident on Feb. 3, 2023, and their first court appearances took place this week at the U.S. District Courts in Baltimore and Orlando, respectively.
“Driven by their ideology of racially-motivated hatred, the defendants allegedly schemed to attack local power grid facilities,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security Matthew Olsen said. “The Justice Department will not tolerate those who threaten critical infrastructure and imperil communities in the name of domestic violent extremism.”
According to the affidavit filed in support of the criminal complaint, Russell conspired to assail critical infrastructure since at least June 2022. He encouraged using Mylar balloons to short out power transformers and hit systems when there was the greatest strain on the grid, during periods of severe heat or cold. In conversations on encrypted communications, he displayed open-source maps of infrastructure such as substations and described how a small number of attacks on these could cause a cascading failure, particularly if multiple assaults were undertaken at one time.
Clendaniel collaborated on a specific plan for these attacks, discussing her desired rifle and a desire to completely destroy the whole of Baltimore.
“Attacks on multiple electrical substations in Maryland would have caused suffering to thousands of Americans going about their everyday lives, but the FBI and our partners put a stop to that threat,” Assistant Director Robert Wells of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division said. “According to the criminal complaint, the defendants allegedly were taking specific steps to carry out their plans, including selecting targets and trying to illegally acquire a rifle. The FBI and our partners will hold accountable all those who commit criminal acts that threaten the safety of those in our communities, regardless of their motivations.”
If convicted, the pair each face a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison for conspiracy to damage an energy facility.