Three men — including ex-Marines — sentenced for plot to cripple power grid

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.

“As part a self-described ‘modern-day SS,’ these defendants conspired, prepared, and trained to attack America’s power grid in order to advance their violent white supremacist ideology,” said US Attorney General Merrick B. Garland in a statement. “These sentences reflect both the depravity of their plot and the Justice Department’s commitment to holding accountable those who seek to use violence to undermine our democracy.”

The DOJ said Collins and Kryscuk were members of the “Iron March” neo-Nazi forum, and were frequent posters before the site was shut down in 2017.

“Collins and Kryscuk met through the forum and expanded their group using an encrypted messaging application as an alternate means of communication outside of the forum,” reads a DOJ statement. “Collins and Kryscuk recruited additional members,” including Hermanson, “and conducted training, including a live-fire training in the desert near Boise, Idaho.”

Investigators recovered video footage of the men training. At one point, the men give the “Heil Hitler” sign, prosecutors said.