Attack on power grid: Three men – including ex-Marines from North Carolina – convicted of involvement in a plot to destroy the power grid

Three men with ties to white supremacist groups were sentenced in federal court on Thursday after plotting to destroy a power grid in the northwestern United States, the U.S. Department of Justice said.

Paul James Kryscuk (38), Liam Collins (25) and Justin Wade Hermanson (25) were all convicted for their years-long involvement in an attack on the power grid as part of a larger, violent extremist plot, according to a press release from the U.S. Department of Justice. Two of the men, Collins and Hermanson, were members of the same U.S. Marine unit at Camp LeJeune, North Carolina, during the planning, according to an indictment.

Collins received the longest sentence of ten years for aiding and abetting the interstate transportation of unregistered firearms. Kryscuk received a sentence of six and a half years for conspiracy to destroy an energy facility, and Hermanson was sentenced to one year and nine months for conspiracy to manufacture and ship firearms interstate.

“These sentences reflect both the vileness of their plot and the Justice Department’s determination to hold accountable those who seek to use violence to undermine our democracy,” US Attorney General Merrick Garland said in the press release.

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In 2016, Collins posted frequently on a neo-Nazi internet forum seeking recruitment for a paramilitary group he described as a “modern-day SS,” prosecutors said. He stated on the forum that he joined the Marines “for the cause” and would put most of his income toward funding the proposed group, according to the indictment.

Collins and Kryscuk, then living in New York, came into contact through the forum in 2017, authorities said. As part of his ideology, Kryscuk discussed creating a rifle-armed guerrilla organization to “slowly reclaim the land that is rightfully ours,” the indictment says.

“We will have to take to the streets and deal as many blows as possible to the remaining power structure in order to keep it in check,” says a message from Kryscuk attached to the indictment.

The two recruited other members for their group, including Hermanson, and extensively investigated an earlier attack on a power substation carried out by an unknown group using assault rifles, according to the Justice Department. Between 2017 and 2020, the group began illegally manufacturing and selling firearms and stealing military equipment, prosecutors said.

They eventually met in 2020 in Boise, Idaho – where Kryscuk had moved earlier that year – for a live-fire training session that they filmed, authorities said. The video showed the group firing assault rifles and giving Nazi salutes – all while wearing skull masks associated with a neo-Nazi group called the Atomwaffen Division, prosecutors said.

Kryscuk was also seen near some Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020 and talked about shooting protesters in a conversation with another co-defendant, Jordan Duncan, the indictment says.

Later that year, a handwritten note was found in Kryscuk’s possession listing approximately twelve locations in Idaho and other states where there was a transformer, substation or other part of the electrical grid in the northwestern United States.

The Eastern District of North Carolina issued arrest warrants for Kryscuk and Collins on October 15, 2020, and Hermanson’s arrest warrant was issued three days later, according to court records.

Kryscuk and Collins were arrested on November 25, 2020. Hermanson was arrested a few months later, on January 28, 2021.

Kryscuk pleaded guilty in February 2022, while Collins and Hermanson pleaded guilty later in 2023, according to a previous Justice Department press release. Another man involved in the group, 25-year-old Joseph Maurino, pleaded guilty in April 2023 to conspiracy to manufacture firearms and ship them interstate. Duncan was the last defendant to sign his deal on June 24, pleading guilty to aiding and abetting the manufacture of a firearm.