A white supremacist plot to shut down the power grid around Baltimore could have cost $75 million in damage to power stations, according to court documents filed Wednesday.
Sarah Beth Clendaniel, 36, of Catonsville pleaded guilty in May to conspiracy to damage electrical facilities as well as illegally possessing a firearm. Prosecutors are asking for an 18-year sentence at a Sept. 25 hearing, according to court documents.
Federal prosecutors said in the new filing Clendaniel shared plans with an undercover informant that could have shut down a handful of Baltimore Gas & Electric substations.
In January 2023, Clendaniel told the informant the five substations she planned to attack and asked him for a rifle and ammunition. A ballistics expert, who prosecutors say will testify at a sentencing hearing on Sept. 25, said the gun could have pierced the walls of transformers at four of the five stations, according to court documents. A BGE senior manager, who is also expected to testify at the hearing, said piercing the wall of a transformer with a bullet or bullets would cause a complete failure of the transformer and force them to be replaced.
Prosecutors say Clendaniel is an admitted accelerationist who believes that violent action is required in order to bring about societal and government collapse to advance her white supremacist ideology. Her co-defendant in the plot, Brandon Russell of Florida, did not plead guilty and is scheduled to go on trial for conspiracy to shut down the power station in November. She previously served five years in prison for an attempted robbery with a knife in Cecil County. An attorney representing Clendaniel did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.
In Russell’s case, prosecutors have asked that undercover informants who infiltrated his group chats are allowed to testify with disguises and without giving their names.
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