BALTIMORE, MD—A Florida man has been found guilty of plotting to blow up substations in Maryland, prosecutors said this week.

A federal jury on Monday found Brandon Russell, 29, of Orlando, Florida, guilty of conspiracy to damage an energy facility on Monday after a six-day trial, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland said. U.S. Attorney Erek L. Barron and FBI Special Agent in Charge William J. DelBagno announced the jury’s verdict.

“Hate-fueled violence has no place in a civilized society. Brandon Russell went well beyond his First Amendment rights, orchestrating a terrorist plot that would have harmed thousands of innocent people,” Barron said. “It won’t always be popular, but this office will do the right thing, the right way, for the right reason.”

“Brandon Russell, a self-proclaimed National Socialist, conspired to ‘lay waste to the city of Baltimore’ through violence and destruction of critical infrastructure. Today’s verdict reinforces there is no tolerance for those who seek to harm our communities and use violence to further hate-filled beliefs,” DelBagno said. “I am proud of the tremendous work by FBI Baltimore’s Joint Terrorism Task Force which led this investigation. The FBI remains diligent in protecting Marylanders from national security and public safety threats every single day in conjunction with our dedicated law enforcement and private sector partners.”

Prosecutors said Russell conspired to carry out attacks against critical infrastructure, specifically transformers located within electrical substations, in furtherance of his racially or ethnically motivated violent extremist beliefs from November 2022 to February 2023.

Russell posted links to open-source maps showing electrical substations, explaining how a small number of attacks could cause a “cascading failure,” prosecutors said.

He also discussed maximizing the impact of the planned attack by hitting multiple substations at once, according to court documents.

Russell recruited Sarah Beth Clendaniel, a Baltimore County resident, to help him carry out the attacks in Baltimore and elsewhere, prosecutors said.

The two planned to damage energy facilities involved in the transmission and distribution of electricity and to cause a significant interruption and impairment of the Baltimore regional power grid, which would have caused more than $75 million in monetary loss, according to court documents.

Clendaniel identified five substations to target, including one in Perry Hall, and Russell attempted to get a weapon for her, prosecutors said.

“If they hit a number of substations all in the same day, they ‘would completely destroy this whole city,'” Clendaniel said, according to court documents. “A ‘good four or five shots through the center of them … should make that happen. ‘

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

Russell faces up to 20 years in federal prison for conspiring to damage an energy facility. His sentencing date remains unscheduled. Senior U.S. District Judge James K. Bredar will determine the sentence, considering U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

In September, Clendaniel was sentenced to 18 years in federal prison for conspiring with Russell to damage an energy facility and 15 years for being a felon in possession of a firearm.

This article was written with the assistance of AI and reviewed by a human editor.