Three men with ties to white supremacist groups were convicted in federal court on Thursday of plotting to destroy the power grid in the northwestern U.S., the Department of Justice said.
According to a Department of Justice press release, Paul James Kriscook, 38, Liam Collins, 25, and Justin Wade Hermanson, 25, were convicted of engaging in a long-running plot to attack the power grid as part of a larger violent extremist plot. According to the federal indictment, Collins and Hermanson served in the same U.S. Marine Corps unit at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, at the time of the plot.
Collins received the maximum sentence of 10 years for aiding and abetting the interstate transportation of unregistered firearms, Krisuk received six and a half years for conspiring to destroy an energy facility, and Hermanson received one year and nine months for manufacturing and transporting firearms interstate.
“These sentences reflect both the egregiousness of their plot and the Department of Justice’s determination to hold accountable those who seek to use violence to undermine our democracy,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a press release.
Prosecutors said Collins frequently posted on neo-Nazi internet forums in 2016, hoping to join a paramilitary group he described as a “modern-day SS.” In the forums, Collins explained he was joining the Marines “for a cause” and that he planned to use most of his earnings to fund the group, according to the indictment.
Authorities said Collins, who was living in New York at the time, and Kriskyk met through a forum in 2017. As part of his ideology, Kriskyk discussed forming a guerilla group armed with rifles to “slowly reclaim the land that is rightfully ours,” the indictment said.
“We must take to the streets and do all the damage we can to bring the remaining power structure to its knees,” Krisuk’s message, included in the indictment, said.
According to the Department of Justice, the two recruited members, including Hermanson, into the group and closely studied previous attacks on electrical substations carried out by unidentified groups using assault rifles. Between 2017 and 2020, the group began illegally manufacturing and selling firearms and stealing military equipment, according to prosecutors.
Authorities said they reunited in Boise, Idaho, in 2020 and filmed themselves conducting live-fire training exercises. Kriskok had moved to the state earlier that year. Prosecutors said the video showed the group firing assault rifles and giving “Heil Hitler” salutes. They were all wearing skull masks associated with the neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen Division.
According to the indictment, Kriskok was seen near Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020 and in conversations with another co-defendant, Jordan Duncan, discussed shooting and killing protesters.
Later that year, handwritten notes found in Kriscook’s belongings listed about a dozen locations in Idaho and other states where transformers, substations and other components for the Northwestern U.S. power grid were located.
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina issued arrest warrants for Chris Cook and Collins on Oct. 15, 2020, and an arrest warrant for Hermanson was issued three days later, court records state.
Krisuk and Collins were arrested on Nov. 25, 2020. Hermanson was arrested a few months later, on Jan. 28, 2021.
According to a previous press release from the Department of Justice, Chris Cook pleaded guilty in February 2022, while Collins and Hermanson subsequently pleaded guilty in 2023. Another man associated with the group, Joseph Maurino, 25, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to manufacture and interstate transport firearms in April 2023. Duncan was the final defendant to enter into a deal on June 24, pleading guilty to aiding and abetting the manufacture of firearms.
