WASHINGTON D.C.
A federal criminal complaint charged Sarah Beth Clendaniel, 34, of Catonsville, Maryland, and Brandon Clint Russell, 27, of Orlando, Florida, with conspiracy to destroy an energy facility, officials stated.
The defendants were arrested last week.
“Driven by their ideology of racially-motivated hatred, the defendants allegedly schemed to attack local power grid facilities,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security Matthew G. Olsen. “The Justice Department will not tolerate those who threaten critical infrastructure and imperil communities in the name of domestic violent extremism.”
“This alleged planned attack threatened lives and would have left thousands of Marylanders in the cold and dark,” said U.S. Attorney Erek L. Barron for the District of Maryland.
“The threat posed by domestic violent extremists is evolving and persistent,” said Special Agent in Charge Thomas J. Sobocinski of the FBI Baltimore Field Office. “The FBI will continue to work closely with our law enforcement and private sector partners to identify and disrupt any potential threat to the safety of our citizens.”
As alleged in the affidavit filed in support of the criminal complaint:
From around June 2022 to the present, Russell conspired to carry out attacks against critical infrastructure, specifically electrical substations, in furtherance of Russell’s racially or ethnically motivated violent extremist beliefs.
DomeAs alleged, Russell encouraged the use of Mylar balloons to short out a power transformer and, in a conversation on Oct. 25, 2022, Russell encouraged an attack be carried out “when there is greatest strain on the grid,” like “when everyone is using electricity to either heat or cool their homes.”
In his conversations on encrypted communications applications, Russell posted links to open-source maps of infrastructure, which included the locations of electrical substations, and he described how a small number of attacks on substations could cause a “cascading failure.”
Russell also discussed maximizing the impact of the planned attack by hitting multiple substations at one time.
A Maryland-based woman, identified as Sarah Beth Clendaniel, collaborated on a plan to carry out the attacks.
Specifically, Clendaniel discussed her desired rifle for the attack. In later conversations, Clendaniel allegedly stated that if they hit a number of electrical 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.”
She further added, “[i]t would probably permanently completely lay this city to waste if we could do that successfully.”
If convicted, Russell and Clendaniel each face up to 20 years in federal prison for conspiracy to damage an energy facility. Defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
The FBI Baltimore Field Office is investigating the case.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kathleen O. Gavin for the District of Maryland is prosecuting the case, with valuable assistance provided by Assistant U.S. Attorney Christina Hoffman for the District of Maryland and the National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section.