Three men with alleged ties to white supremacist groups have been sentenced to prison for plotting a racially-motivated attack on the US power grid that was ultimately thwarted by federal agents.
Liam Collins, 25, of Rhode Island, received a 10-year prison term Thursday for aiding and abetting the interstate transportation of unregistered firearms, while Paul James Kryscuk, a 38-year-old Idaho man, was sentenced to six years and six months for conspiracy to destroy an energy facility.
Justin Wade Hermanson, 25, of North Carolina, will soon serve a 21-month sentence for conspiracy to manufacture firearms and ship interstate.
Collins and Hermanson were members of the same US Marine unit at Camp LeJeune in North Carolina during the plot’s planning, federal investigators found.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) detailed in court documents how, in 2016, Kryscuk, Collins and Hermanson “researched, discussed and reviewed” a previous attack on the power grid, carried out on a power substation by still-unknown individuals using assault rifles.
Federal investigators assert Kryscuk manufactured firearms for the planned attack between 2017 and 2020. During that same period, Collins allegedly stole military gear, “including magazines for assault-style rifles,” and had them delivered to Kryscuk and Hermanson.
The three men had obtained a vast wealth of information about firearms, explosives and nerve toxins and in late 2020, pinpointed a dozen possible targets in Idaho and surrounding Northwest states, including transformers and substations, according to investigators.
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