White Supremacist Sentenced To 20 Years In Prison Over Plot To Destroy Baltimore Power Grid
In February 2023, two white supremacists were arrested over their plot to attack the majority-Black city of Baltimore by destroying a Maryland power grid that served the Baltimore area. On Thursday, the man accused of masterminding the conspiracy to organize “sniper attacks” on electrical substations around Baltimore was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
According to CNN, 30-year-old Brandon Russell, founder of the Florida-based neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen Division, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge James Bredar to two decades in lockup after being convicted of one count of conspiracy to damage an energy facility. Russell’s girlfriend and co-conspirator, Sarah Clendaniel, of Catonsville, Maryland, had already been sentenced to 18 years in prison after she pleaded guilty to her role in the plot. Bredar said Russell should receive a longer sentence than his partner in white-and-disgruntled crime because he was more culpable and contributed the “intellectual horsepower” that brought the plot closer to being executed.
Bredar stated at the sentencing hearing that Russell and Clendaniel sought to “create their own bizarre utopia populated by people who only look and think like they do.” (And to think, they could have just waited a couple of years and moved to Arkansas.)
“Well, that’s not how it works,” Bredar continued. “The law doesn’t permit that. We don’t change course in this country via violent overthrow.” (Tell Jan. 6 Trump supporters that.)
Not only did the judge impose the maximum sentence on Russell, but he sentenced him to a lifetime of supervised release, “including close monitoring of Russell’s electronic devices,” CNN reported.
It’s worth mentioning that Russell’s attorney argued it was actually Clendaniel who posed the larger threat between the two.
From CNN:
Russell’s attorney, Ian Goldstein, has argued that Clendaniel posed a greater threat because she was taking steps to obtain a firearm and shoot up electrical substations. Meanwhile, Russell was living in Florida with absolutely no plans to travel to Maryland, according to his attorney.
“For Mr. Russell, everything was talk,” Goldstein told the court.
He also pointed to Russell’s supportive family. Court papers filed ahead of sentencing included a letter from his mother, who said she believes he’s been trying to fill the void left by a largely absent father. She said some challenges arose with her son after she moved them back to the Bahamas, where she has relatives.
“Brandon Russell is an educated young man who has served this country’s military,” his attorney wrote, connecting his descent into Nazism with longstanding mental health challenges. “His family relationships speak volumes about the person he can be.”
But the good judge was not swayed by Goldstein’s claim that his client’s only real crime was being in a long-distance relationship with the real criminal, that a mental disability made him a Nazi, or that his daddy not being around drove him to white supremacy. All Bredar did was acknowledge Russell’s “somewhat complicated psycho-social history” and recommend that he get mental health treatment during his time in prison.
I mean, come on now — this man founded a whole neo-Nazi group. If white supremacy is a mental disorder, we’ve been dealing with quite an epidemic for the last 400 years.
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