Prosecutors say damage from the scheme would have been $75 million and would have caused power outages for most of Maryland.

The FBI announced on September 25 that Maryland resident Sarah Beth Clendaniel, 36, of Catonsville was sentenced to 18 years in prison plus a lifetime of “supervised release” for conspiring to destroy or damage the electrical facilities in Maryland. She was also given a concurrent sentence of 15 years in prison and three years of supervised release because she was a felon in possession of a firearm.

Her plan, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said, was to “completely destroy” the city of Baltimore to support her white, violent supremacist beliefs. Luckily, her plot was foiled by the FBI and their law enforcement partners.

“Those who seek to attack our country’s critical infrastructure will face the full force of the U.S. Department of Justice,” said Mr. Garland. “Sarah Beth Clendaniel sought to ‘completely destroy’ the city of Baltimore by targeting five power substations as a means of furthering her violent white supremacist ideology. She will now spend the next 18 years in federal prison. The Justice Department will continue to aggressively counter, disrupt, and prosecute those who seek to launch these kinds of hate-fueled attacks that target our critical infrastructure, endanger entire cities, and threaten our national security.”

Court documents share details of the plot to destabilize the Baltimore area with a racist scheme based upon destroying or severely damaging electrical systems to wreak havoc in the area.

Court documents and Ms. Clendaniel’s plea deal reveal that in 2018, she became friendly with another alleged perpetrator, Florida resident Brandon C. Russell, who is awaiting trial. Both parties shared the white supremacist concept that believes in “accelerationism,” which is that since the current system in America is supposedly broken and irreparable without a political solution, violence must be taken. The ultimate goal of accelerationism is to create chaos in the US and force government collapse.

Between about December 2022 through February 2023, the FBI reports that Miss Clendaniel “conspired with Russell 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. The intended monetary loss associated with the planned attacks would have exceeded $75 million.”

In her plea deal, Ms. Clendaniel admitted to the planned attacks and that she “communicated and planned over encrypted communication applications (ECA) to carry out attacks against energy facilities.” Authorities received assistance from an anonymous source to help foil the attack.

“The defendant plotted to disable the power grid around the entire Baltimore region and cause harm to thousands of people in pursuit of a racially motivated violent extremist agenda,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray.

Authorities found evidence in the case via text messages. The FBI said that Clendaniel had ongoing conversations about the planned attack and requested her contact “CHS-1” to buy her a rifle, saying she wanted to “accomplish something worthwhile” over “the next couple of weeks” to “accomplish as much as possible before June, at the latest.”

The plot became more and more detailed, and the FBI revealed that on January 2023 Ms. Clendaniel was ready to take action and asked “CHS-1” to be the driver and the “shooter” for the attack. The messages were encrypted and included specifics about firearms accessories they would need and targets for the attack. Locations the actors targeted included “Norrisville, Reisterstown, and Perry Hall,” because, Ms. Clendaniel noted, with multiple attacks they “would completely destroy this whole city.”

The FBI said that Ms. Clendaniel planned that with same-day attacks, “they needed to “destroy those cores, not just leak the oil . . . ” and that a “good four or five shots through the center of them . . . should make that happen.”

“During that conversation,” noted the FBI statement, “Clendaniel sent CHS-1 five links to the “Open Infrastructure Map” which showed the locations of five specific Baltimore, Gas and Electric (BGE) electrical substations in Maryland. BGE is an energy company that utilizes substations, like the five targeted sites, to produce, convert, transform, regulate and distribute energy. Three of the five substations were located near the towns of Norrisville, Reisterstown, and Perry Hall. The remaining two substations were in the vicinity of Baltimore City. Each location is a BGE substation with significant infrastructure.”

Law enforcement agents executed a search warrant on Feb. 3, 2023, at Ms. Clendaniel’s home in Catonsville, Maryland. During the search, agents discovered “various firearms and hundreds of rounds of ammunition,” which were illegal for the actor to possess since she was already a convicted felon. Her prior convictions include robbery in 2006 in Cecil County, Maryland.

Ms. Clendaniel’s alleged accomplice is the co-founder of a neo-Nazi organization called Atomwaffen Division. He will go on trial in November.