Sarah Beth Clendaniel began conspiring in December 2022 with Brandon Russell, founder of the neo-Nazi group AtomWaffen, to cause catastrophic damage to energy facilities in the Baltimore area, federal prosecutors said.
Clendaniel and Russell shared with a confidential informant in January 2023 that they intended to hit five substations simultaneously, which would “completely destroy” the city.
Clendaniel identified power substations in Norrisville, Reisterstown, and Perry Hall, as well as those in the vicinity of Baltimore. She said that the attack would “probably permanently completely lay this city to waste.”
Prosecutors said that if they had been successful with their plot, they would have caused an estimated $75 million in damage.
Since she was a convicted felon, prosecutors said Clendaniel requested for the confidential informant to get her a rifle that would be used in the attack. When law enforcement searched her house, they found various firearms and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.
Cendaniel pleaded guilty to conspiracy and felony possession charges in May.
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Prosecutors were seeking a 20-year sentence, but her defense attorneys were pleading for leniency due to her traumatic past.
“This is someone who simply has not had positive peers in her life,” one of her attorneys, Sedira Banan, told the judge.
