The creator of a Florida-based neo-Nazi group was founded guilty Monday of conspiring with his previous sweetheart to prepare an attack on Maryland’s power grid in furtherance of their shared racist beliefs.
Brandon Russell, 29, motivated Sarah Beth Clendaniel to perform a series of “sniper attacks” on electrical substations around Baltimore that might have triggered considerable damage to the local power grid, according to federal district attorneys. Their objective was to wreak havoc in the majority-Black city, district attorneys state.
The 2 were jailed in February 2023– before the strategies were carried out.
After becoming aware of 4 days of statement in federal court in Baltimore, the 12-person jury pondered for less than an hour. They discovered Russell guilty of one count of conspiracy to harm an energy center, the only charge he dealt with.
Russell will be sentenced at a later date.
He co-founded the neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen Department, which is German for “atomic weapon,” numerous years back in Florida.
This wasn’t his very first altercation with police. Russell formerly pleaded guilty to ownership of an unregistered harmful gadget and inappropriate storage of explosive products after private investigators browsed his home and discovered a stash of extremely explosive products and a cache of neo-Nazi indications, posters, books and flags.
Throughout closing arguments Monday afternoon, district attorney Joseph Baldwin stated trial statement, consisting of from a private informant who got gotten in touch with Russell through the social networks app Telegram. Russell then presented Clendaniel and the informant, hoping the individual might assist her get a gun to utilize in the attack, according to district attorneys.
” He was the group leader looking after his warrior,” Baldwin informed the jury.
Russell’s lawyer minimized his participation in the plot, calling the case “a setup from the very start.”
Russell remained in Florida the whole time without any strategies to take a trip to Maryland and actively help in performing the attack, lawyer Ian Goldstein stated. Russell might have supported efforts to interfere with contemporary society and bring back white supremacy, however he wasn’t a co-conspirator in this case, Goldstein stated throughout his closing argument.
” He was a cheerleader– as horrible as that sounds,” Goldstein stated. “That’s what he was, which’s not unlawful.”