BALTIMORE, MD—A Florida man was sentenced Thursday to 20 years in federal prison for conspiring to destroy power substations in the Baltimore area.
Brandon Clint Russell, 30, of Orlando, was given the sentence by Senior U.S. District Judge James K. Bredar, who also ordered a lifetime of supervised release. Russell’s co-conspirator, Sarah Beth Clendaniel, 37, of Catonsville, Maryland, was previously sentenced to 18 years in prison for her role in the plot.
U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland, Kelly O. Hayes, said in a statement that Russell was motivated by “hatred” and his plan could have harmed thousands of people.
“This conviction underscores our unwavering commitment to dismantling violent extremist threats and holding accountable anyone who dares to conspire to endanger the lives of others,” Hayes said.
The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force was credited with disrupting the plot. According to evidence presented at trial, Russell and Clendaniel conspired from November 2022 to February 2023 to attack critical infrastructure, including a power substation in Perry Hall. Their goal was to cause a “cascading failure” in the regional power grid, which they believed would “completely destroy this whole city.”
Russell, who held what authorities described as “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremist beliefs,” shared open-source maps of infrastructure with Clendaniel. He also discussed how a small number of attacks could lead to widespread outages. Clendaniel identified five substations to target and told Russell that a “good four or five shots through the center of them” would be enough to lay the city to waste.
The intended attacks were estimated to cause more than $75 million in monetary damages. Russell had attempted to secure a weapon for Clendaniel to carry out the attacks.
The investigation was a collaborative effort between the FBI’s Baltimore and Tampa field offices, the Joint Terrorism Task Force, Maryland State Police, and Baltimore County Police Department.
