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Sarah Beth Clendaniel, 34, and Orlando resident Brandon Clint Russell, 27, are facing federal charges for coming up with an elaborate plan to “completely destroy the city,” in a move that threatened thousands in Maryland, according to the Department of Justice.
“This alleged planned attack threatened lives and would have left thousands of Marylanders in the cold and dark,” Maryland US Attorney Erek L. Barron said. “We are united and committed to using every legal means necessary to disrupt violence, including hate-fueled attacks.”
According to prosecutors, beginning in June 2022, Russell conspired to carry out attacks against critical infrastructure, specifically electrical structures “in furtherance of (his) racially or ethnically motivated violent extremist beliefs.”
Russell would post links to open-source maps of infrastructure, describing how a small number of attacks on substations could cause a “cascading failure” while discussing the possibility of maximizing their impact by hitting multiple stations at once, drawing in Clendaniel, who has a lengthy criminal past.
It is alleged that Clendaniel collaborated with Russell to carry out the attacks.
She planned to secure a weapon and identified five possible substations in Maryland to target,” prosecutors said.
Clendaniel allegedly stated that if they hit a number of them 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.”
In photos released by the Department of Justice, a picture believed to be Clendaniel shows her wearing tactical gear featuring a swastika, holding a rifle, with a pistol in a holster on her left leg.
Russell and Clendaniel’s relationship began in 2018 when both were incarcerated in different facilities, according to court documents.
Clendaniel reportedly has a lengthy criminal history that includes a 2006 arrest for a number of offenses that resulted in a felony robbery conviction and a five-year prison bid.
In those court documents, officials noted that in May 2017, Russell lived in Tampa, Florida with three roommates, one of whom murdered the other two while he was not home.
During the subsequent investigation, police found Neo-Nazi paraphernalia, a picture of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, and “the highly explosive hexamethylene triperoxide diamine.”
While he was being interviewed, Russell also “admitted to subscribing to ‘National Socialist’ or Nazi beliefs, that he had started his own local National Socialist Group called the ‘Atomwaffen,’ that his roommates were members of ‘Atomwaffen’ and he had manufactured the (explosives).”
“The threat posed by domestic violent extremists is evolving and persistent,” Special Agent in Charge Thomas J. Sobocinski of the FBI's Baltimore field office said.”
If convicted, Russell and Clendaniel each face up to 20 years in federal prison for conspiracy to damage an energy facility.
“Driven by their ideology of racially-motivated hatred, the defendants allegedly schemed to attack local power grid facilities,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security Matthew Olsen added.
“The Justice Department will not tolerate those who threaten critical infrastructure and imperil communities in the name of domestic violent extremism.”
In a statement released on Monday, Feb. 6, parent company Exelon and Baltimore Gas & Electric said that they are working with the FBI, state, and local law enforcement amid the ongoing investigation.
"Law enforcement acted before the perpetrators were able to carry out their plan, and there was no damage to any of the substations, nor was any service disrupted," officials stated. "The substations are not believed to have been targeted out of any connection to BGE or Exelon, or because of any particular vulnerability.
"We have a long-standing partnership with law enforcement and state and federal regulators of the grid to secure critical infrastructure; this work is even more important now as threats have increased in recent years. There are no currently known threats to any of our facilities."
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