FL Neo-Nazi Guilty Of Plotting To Destroy Baltimore Power Grid: US DOJ

BALTIMORE, MD — A Florida neo-Nazi was convicted of charges related to a plot to destroy the Baltimore-area power grid, according to a U.S. Department of Justice news release.

Brandon Russell, 29, of Orlando was found guilty of conspiracy to damage an energy facility after a six-day trial.

Prosecutors said he hoped to start a race war with the attack.

From at least November 2022 to February 2023, Russell conspired with his girlfriend, a Maryland-based woman, Sarah Beth Clendaniel, to carry out attacks against critical infrastructure to interrupt the Baltimore regional power grid.

They devised the plot “in furtherance of his racially or ethnically motivated violent extremist beliefs,” the DOJ said.

The couple planned to destroy electrical substations in Reisterstown, Perry Hall, Norrisville in Harford County and other locations, court documents said.

Russell posted links to open-source maps of infrastructure, including the locations of substations, and he described how a small number of attacks on these substations could cause a “cascading failure,” the department said. He also discussed plans to hit multiple substations at the same time.

The monetary loss associated with the planned attacks would have been more than $75 million.

Clendaniel identified five substations to target, and Russell tried to secure a weapon for her.

She said that if they hit a number of substations all in the same day, they “would completely destroy this whole city,” and that a “good four or five shots through the center of them . . . should make that happen,” according to the DOJ.

She further added, “(It) would probably permanently completely lay this city to waste if we could do that successfully.”

Russell faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison for conspiracy to damage an energy facility. He’s scheduled to be sentenced on June 17.

Clendaniel was sentenced to 18 years in prison on Sept. 25. This will be followed by a lifetime of supervised release for conspiring with her boyfriend. She was also sentenced to 15 years in prison for being a felon in possession of a firearm and three years of supervised release.

Russell, a formal Florida National Guard member, is the founder of the violent neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen, which targets racial minorities, the Jewish community, the LGBTQ community, journalists, the United States government, and critical infrastructure, according to court documents.

In a previous case he pleaded guilty to possession of an unregistered destructive device and improper storage of explosive materials after authorities found highly explosive materials, along with neo-Nazi signs, posters, books and flags in his home.