Three men sentenced for plans to strike power grid in northwest US

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has sentenced three men to prison for their yearslong plan to destroy a power grid in the northwestern United States. The extremist suspects were connected to a Neo-Nazi parliamentary group that studied at length how to take out power substations by using automatic rifles in Idaho and surrouding states. 

Prosecutors said the group illegally manufactured and sold firearms, as well as stole military gear, between 2017 and 2020. Two of them served in the US Marine Corps at Camp Lejune in North Carolina during the planning, as reported by ABC News.



Liam Collins, 25, who lived in New York when he began to recruit members to join his Neo-Nazi parliamentary group through a web forum, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for aiding and abetting the interstate transportation of unregistered firearms.

Paul James Kryscuk, 38, who also lived in New York, connected with Collins on the forum, in which the two formed a guerilla organization armed with rifles they called a "modern-day SS" to "take back the land that is rightfully ours," according to the indictment.

Kryscuk was sentenced to 6 and a half years in prison for conspiracy to destroy an energy facility, per the DOJ. Justin Wade Hermanson, 25, who was in the same US Marine Corps base as Collins, was sentenced to one year and nine months for conspiracy to manufacture and ship firearms between states.

The group first met in Boise, Idaho after Kryscuk moved there in 2020 and filmed a live-fire weapons training. They plotted to take down the Northwestern power grid, prosecutors said. Authorities discovered a handwritten note in Kryscuk's possession that featured 12 locations in Idaho and other states that had transformers and substations.

Kryscuk and Collins were arrested on Nov. 25, 2020, following arrest warrants issued by the Eastern District of North Carolina. Hermanson was arrested on a warrant three months later, on Jan. 28, 2021.