Sarah Beth Clendaniel, 36, conspired with Brandon Russell, who co-founded a Florida-based neo-Nazi group, to take down the grid in eastern Maryland and wreak havoc in the process. Now, she's headed to prison for 18 years despite placing the blame on her past addiction and mental health struggles.
The Neo-Nazi couple plotted to cause significant damage to the regional power grid, meant to create chaos in the majority-Black city, according to federal prosecutors.
“It would probably permanently completely lay this city to waste if we could do that successfully,” Clendaniel said to what turned out to be an FBI informant.
The Washington Post reports:
“This would have been an utter and complete catastrophe,” U. S. District Judge James Bredar said from the bench, describing the defendant, Sarah Beth Clendaniel, as a continued threat to public safety.
Clendaniel had earlier admitted to espousing a white-supremacist ideology known as “accelerationism,” which holds that bold actions are needed to cause “societal and government collapse,” according to court records. In late 2022 and 2023, according to prosecutors, she schemed with others to shoot through large transformers at substations around Baltimore to create widespread power outages.
Clendaniel, who had been living in Catonsville, Md., at the time of her arrest in 2023, recently pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to damage energy facilities and one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm.
“If we can pull off what I’m hoping,” she wrote in an early 2023 encrypted message, according to court records, “this would be legendary.”
After her arrest, Clendaniel had "been in touch with a leader of the Terrorgram Collective, described by authorities as a terrorist group devoted to attacking America’s critical infrastructure and carrying out hate crimes," and that was noted in court.
While incarcerated in 2018 over robbery charges, she and Russell, who was locked up in a different prison, wrote to each other, and that's how their romantic relationship began. Still, now she's cooperating with prosecutors against her Nazi boo.
WMAR reports:
"The power grid is a huge vulnerability," said Rick Forno, Assistant Director for the UMBC Center for Cybersecurity, and an expert in electrical engineering and computer science. "So much of our modern way of life and business is dependent on it.”
Clendaniel pleaded guilty back in May, with a deal in place to cooperate with the authorities against Russell, who pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutors recommended a sentence of less than 18 years for Clendaniel, but a federal judge disagreed.
After serving the 18-year sentence, Clendaniel will be on supervised release for the rest of her life.
“Such cowardice, designed to disrupt and endanger the lives of Maryland’s citizens, will not be tolerated,” said Erek L. Barron, United States Attorney for the District of Maryland. “My Office remains committed to protecting the security and well-being of the community by prosecuting such conduct to the full extent of the law.”
“Those who seek to attack our country’s critical infrastructure will face the full force of the United States Department of Justice,” said Attorney General Merrick B. 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.”
Bye-bye, Sarah.
