Former Marines in prison for racist conspiracy to attack power grid

Three men have been sentenced to prison for helping plan an attack on an energy facility to advance their “violent, white supremacist ideology,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement Friday.

Federal authorities did not disclose the exact location of the facility, but according to court documents, agents seized a handwritten list of about a dozen locations in Idaho and surrounding states that contained “a transformer, substation or other component of the electrical grid for the Northwest United States.”

“As part of a self-described ‘modern security force,’ these defendants planned, prepared and trained to attack America’s electrical grid in order to advance their violent, white supremacist ideology,” Garland said.

The three men – Paul James Kryscuk, 38, of Idaho; Liam Collins, 25, of Rhode Island; and Justin Wade Hermanson, 25, of North Carolina – were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 21 months to 10 years for their involvement in conspiracy and weapons offenses. Garland said the men met on a now-closed neo-Nazi forum called Iron March, where they researched and discussed previous attacks on power grids.

Her conviction is the latest development in energy attacks in the United States by saboteurs seeking to blow up or shut down power grids. People have vandalized or shot at electrical substations in Maryland, North Carolina, Oregon and Washington state, in one case causing major power outages.

Garland said in the case of the three men, they wanted to use violence to “undermine our democracy”.

Men stole military equipment trained for the attacks

The Justice Department said in a statement that the men – part of a 2021 indictment against five people – manufactured firearms, stole military equipment and collected information about explosives and toxic substances for the attack between 2017 and 2020.

Collins and co-defendant Jordan Duncan of North Carolina were former Marines stationed at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina who used their status to illegally obtain military equipment and intelligence for the plot. According to the indictment, they planned to use 50 pounds of homemade explosives to destroy transformers.

In a propaganda video, the men can be seen wearing nuclear weapons masks and making the “Heil Hitler” sign. The Southern Poverty Law Center describes Atomwaffen as a terrorist neo-Nazi group.

“In October 2020, a handwritten list of approximately a dozen intersections and locations in Idaho and surrounding states was discovered in Kryscuk’s possession, including intersections and locations where a transformer, substation or other component of the electrical grid for the Northwestern United States was located,” the department wrote this week.

FBI and Justice Department fight against attacks on power grids

The three prison sentences come just two weeks after the FBI arrested a New Jersey man in connection with a white supremacist attack on a power grid.

Federal agents arrested Andrew Takhistov at an airport after he allegedly ordered an undercover police officer to destroy a New Jersey energy facility with Molotov cocktails while he was fighting in Ukraine. Takhistov was on his way to join the Russian Volunteer Corps, a Russian militia fighting for Ukraine.

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