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Former Marines get prison sentences for racist plan to attack power grid

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Three men have been sentenced to prison terms for their roles in plotting an attack on a power plant to spread their “violent white supremacist ideology,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement Friday.

Federal officials have not disclosed the specific location of the facility, but court documents show that agents seized a handwritten list of about a dozen locations in Idaho and surrounding states that included “a transformer, substation or other component of the electrical grid for the northwestern United States.”

“As part of a self-proclaimed ‘modern-day SS,’ these defendants conspired, planned, and trained to attack the U.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 — received sentences ranging from 21 months to 10 years for their roles in conspiracy and firearms offenses. Garland said the men met on a now-shuttered neo-Nazi forum called the “Iron March,” where they researched and discussed previous attacks on the power grid.

Their conviction is the latest development in energy attacks in the U.S. by saboteurs seeking to blow up or paralyze power grids. People have vandalized or shot at power plants in Maryland, North Carolina, Oregon and Washington state, in one case causing widespread blackouts.

Garland said the three men wanted to use violence to “undermine our democracy.”

Men stole military equipment and trained for the attacks

The Justice Department said in a statement that the men, who are part of a 2021 indictment against five people, were involved in manufacturing firearms, stealing military equipment and gathering information on explosives and toxins 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 and used their status to illegally obtain military equipment and information for the plot. According to the indictment, they planned to use 50 pounds of homemade explosives to destroy transformers.

The men were seen in a propaganda video wearing Atomwaffen masks and making the “Heil Hitler” sign. The Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled Atomwaffen a neo-Nazi terrorist group.

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

FBI, Justice Department Fight Power Grid Attacks

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 agent to destroy a New Jersey power plant with Molotov cocktails while he was fighting in Ukraine. Takhistov was en route to join the Russian Volunteer Corps, a Russian militia fighting for Ukraine.

Prosecutors say Takhistov sought to establish white supremacy and encouraged violence against ethnic and religious minorities.

In 2023, the Department of Homeland Security warned that domestic extremists have been developing plans since at least 2020 to physically attack energy infrastructure to cause civil unrest. The attacks, especially during extreme temperatures, could threaten American lives, the department wrote.

Contact reporter Krystal Nurse at [email protected]. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter,@KrystalRNurse.