A woman from Maryland has been sentenced to 18 years in prison followed by a lifetime of supervised release for her role in a plot to take down the power grid in the Baltimore area, as stated by the US Justice Department yesterday. The 36-year-old, Sarah Beth Clendaniel, entered a guilty plea in May under a deal that included a charge of conspiring to damage energy facilities.
“Sarah Beth Clendaniel aimed to completely obliterate Baltimore by attacking five power substations, driven by her extreme white supremacist beliefs,” stated US Attorney General Merrick Garland. Thankfully, the planned assaults were halted by law enforcement officials.
Last year, Clendaniel’s family members shared with reporters about her extremist views. Her nephew, Daniel Clites, told the Associated Press, “She openly admitted she was racist. She was trying to draw attention to her cause.”
Clendaniel and an alleged accomplice, Brandon Russell from Florida, started communicating through letters in 2018 while both were incarcerated in separate facilities, according to the plea agreement. They later formed a romantic relationship after they were released from prison.
The plea deal included an admission by Clendaniel that she and Russell endorsed white supremacist views and supported ‘accelerationism,’ a belief in the necessity of violent actions to trigger the collapse of society and government, seeing no viable political solutions.
Unrepentant and Dangerous Extremist
According to a sentencing memorandum, US attorneys described Clendaniel’s involvement in the conspiracy to strike crucial infrastructure in Maryland as part of her commitment to accelerationism. If law enforcement had not intervened, she and her co-conspirator would have caused lasting damage to Baltimore’s electrical grid.
Clendaniel received her sentence from Judge James Bredar at the US District Court for the District of Maryland, who agreed with the government’s recommendation of 18 years. Concurrently, she was also sentenced to 15 years for illegal possession of a firearm as a convicted felon. Clendaniel has been in federal custody since February 2023 and received credit for time served. Her criminal record includes convictions for robberies in 2006 and 2016.
“The defendant is clearly an unrepentant, violent white supremacist and a repeat offender, posing a significant threat to the community,” stated the US attorneys. They expressed doubt that a lighter sentence would have any reformative or deterrent effect on Clendaniel given her history.
As for Russell, he was previously identified as a key figure in a neo-Nazi group and sentenced in January 2018 to five years in prison for having an unregistered destructive device and improperly storing explosive materials. He is currently awaiting trial on charges related to conspiring to damage or destroy electrical facilities in Maryland.
The Justice Department revealed that despite using encrypted communication apps, Clendaniel and Russell were apprehended after discussing their plans with a confidential informant, identified only as CHS-1, over several weeks in January 2023. A search warrant executed on February 3, 2023, at Clendaniel’s residence in Catonsville, Maryland, led to the discovery of various firearms and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.
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