Maryland woman pleads guilty to alleged plot to attack Baltimore power stations
Source: ABC News
May 14, 2024, 2:16 PM
A Maryland woman accused of plotting to carry out attacks on multiple energy substations surrounding Baltimore pleaded guilty on Tuesday to federal conspiracy and firearms charges, court records show.
Sarah Beth Clendaniel, of Catonsville, was charged last year with conspiring with a Florida-based founder of the neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen to carry out the attacks, in what prosecutors described as a racism-fueled plot to spark mass chaos in the majority-Black city.
"Ms. Clendaniel's hate-fueled plans to destroy the Baltimore region power grid threatened thousands of innocent lives, Maryland U.S. Attorney Erek Barron said in a statement Tuesday. "But, when law enforcement and the communities we serve are united in partnership, hate cannot win."
Clendaniel initially pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to damage an energy facility. She was subsequently also charged with being a prohibited person in possession of a firearm and pleaded guilty to both charges in federal court on Tuesday. "If we can pull off what I'm hoping ... this would be legendary," Clendaniel was quoted in charging documents telling a federal informant about her plot with Brandon Russell to target five substations around Baltimore.
Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/maryland-woman-pleads-guilty-baltimore-power-stations-plot/story?id=110215143
Link to DOJ PRESS RELEASE - Maryland Woman Pleads Guilty to Conspiring to Destroy the Baltimore Region Power Grid
LiberalFighter
(53,164 posts)flying_wahini
(7,725 posts) Clendaniel pleaded guilty to conspiracy and felony possession charges. She faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison on the conspiracy charge and 15 years on the felon in possession charge followed by up to lifetime of supervised release for the conspiracy charge. Sentencing is scheduled for Sept 3.
She was a felon and got someone to loan her a gun but had lots of ammo?
She had other plans for other cities and the most she can get is 20 years, NOT enough!
I hope the judge sticks it to her.
orange jar
(774 posts)
are always the targets of these people. The subreddits r/collapse and r/conspiracy all talk about the power infrastructure and speculate on what will happen if it's turned off/destroyed. Scary people.
ETA: should also mention that these same people WANT our infrastructure destroyed to fulfill their violent, apocalyptic fantasies.
PSPS
(14,031 posts)Ponietz
(3,245 posts)I suspect some of the train derailments and wildfires are intentional.
wnylib
(23,672 posts)Shipwack
(2,288 posts)He wrote an article for Omni magazine that was in the form of a fictional letter to a president about the aftermath of a widespread terrorist attack on our infrastructure.
He talked about how a few rifle rounds in a few unguarded power substations would bring down wide swaths of the electrical grid. How only a few bridges connect the east and the west. There's l a bit more that I can't remember. Granted, he was a major dirtbag, but the destruction of a few transformers a couple of years ago show he might not have been wrong.
The only thing that's been saving us so far is the general low quality of domestic terrorist groups. By the time a group becomes large enough to carry out something widespread, it's large enough to have someone inform on them. Unfortunately, this doesn't apply to state actors, and the our domestic terrorists are getting more competent (see January 6th; no, not the yahoos rioting outside, but the disciplined core that lead the mob to the unreinforced windows, etc).
IronLionZion
(46,718 posts)Oopsie Daisy
(4,079 posts)louis-t
(23,489 posts)wolfie001
(3,092 posts)Machete robber to feed heroin addiction. Bonkers. I'm sure she was a trumper all the way. Lived outside of Baltimore. Her mother was not a fan of her lifestyle, understandably.