Maryland woman sentenced to 18 years for racist plot to attack Baltimore power stations
(BALTIMORE) — A Maryland woman who pleaded guilty to a neo-Nazi plot to attack multiple energy substations surrounding Baltimore was sentenced Wednesday to 18 years in prison and a lifetime of supervision upon her release, according the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Maryland.
Sarah Beth Clendaniel pleaded guilty in May to federal conspiracy and firearms charges.
Clendaniel communicated her plans to use a high-powered rifle to shoot through key infrastructure at five substations that the U.S. government estimated could have caused roughly $75 million in damage, had the plot not been foiled, according to prosecutors.
Clendaniel and a co-defendant still set to face trial, Brandon Russell — who co-founded the neo-Nazi group AtomWaffen — believed the destruction of the substations would lead to a “cascading failure” of Baltimore’s electrical grid that would “permanently completely lay this city to waste,” Clendaniel said in recorded conversations with a confidential informant, according to federal prosecutors.
Russell had been incarcerated when the two first met, stemming from a 2018 conviction related to his possession of an unregistered destructive device, officials said.
Prosecutors described the scheme as a racism-fueled plot to spark mass chaos in the majority-Black city.
“If we can pull off what I’m hoping … this would be legendary,” Clendaniel was quoted in charging documents telling the informant.
Clendaniel agreed that if she were to carry out the attacks the total costs of repairs to the energy facilities would have exceeded $100,000, according to plea documents.
The pair crafted their plot to shoot up the five substations while both were out on probation, according to charging documents, when Russell began communicating with a confidential FBI source in 2022 about his hopes of attacking critical infrastructure sites.
Russell allegedly told the informant that “putting holes in transformers … is the greatest thing somebody can do,” and told the informant they should carry out an attack “when there is greatest strain on the grid” to incur mass disruption, according to court documents. Russell further told the informant of Clendaniel and his alleged coordination with her to attack an energy facility and offered to connect the two to coordinate their attacks in order to “maximize impact.”
Upon meeting the informant, Clendaniel told them in early 2023 that she expected she would die of a terminal illness in a few months and was hoping to obtain a rifle as soon as possible in order to attack five substations she had singled out around Baltimore — all on the same day, prosecutors said.
“[Clendaniel] described how there was a ‘ring’ around Baltimore and if they hit a number of them all in the same day, they ‘would completely destroy this whole city,'” the affidavit stated.
(MOSCOW, Idaho) — The wheels of justice turn slowly, and it’s not cheap to keep them grinding.
Still more than nine months before Bryan Kohberger’s capital murder trial is scheduled to begin — and still without a definitive answer on where in Idaho it will be held — local government leaders in the area where four students were stabbed to death in 2022 do know one thing: The trial will cost taxpayers a lot of money, so the county requires a cash infusion, officials have decided — wherever it ends up taking place.
To that end, Latah County District Court has been granted a significant increase for next year: The county’s Board of Commissioners on Tuesday approved boosting the trial expense budget to $150,000 for fiscal year 2025 — more than 40 times their 2024 budget of $3,500.
It’s not the first time the financial impact of the case has come up. In 2023, prosecutors leading the case against Kohberger requested a $135,000 budget. Even then, they said, their part could cost more than eight times what’s typically allotted annually.
Prosecutors allege that in the early morning hours of Nov. 13, 2022, Kohberger, then a criminology Ph.D. student at nearby Washington State University, broke into an off-campus home and stabbed four University of Idaho students to death: Ethan Chapin, 20; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20, and Kaylee Goncalves, 21.
After a six-week hunt, police zeroed in on Kohberger as the suspect, arresting him in December 2022 at his family’s home in Pennsylvania. He was indicted in May 2023 and charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary. At his arraignment, he declined to offer a plea, so the judge entered a not guilty plea on his behalf.
His lawyers have said Kohberger was driving around alone and not near the crime scene on the night the killings occurred, and say they’ll have expert cellphone analysis to back that up.
The trial is currently set for June 2025.
Kohberger could face the death penalty, if convicted.
With the pretrial process creeping forward, the financial line items associated with the case continue to accrue.
Once the trial kicks off, according to the approved Latah County budget, expenses could include travel and lodging costs for jurors and bailiffs. Since jurors in the complex and high-profile case will need supplies, including meals, the court also requested a large increase in its jury supplies budget: from $3,500 to $50,000.
The approved budget to cover witness fees is also substantially higher than last year’s, primarily to pay for the travel costs of witnesses scheduled to testify in court, according to the budget.
The commissioners also approved $20,000 in contracts and labor in preparation for a trial in Latah County.
If the trial is held in Latah County, this money would be used to hire extra workers for jury management, according to Latah County Clerk Julie Fry.
But whether the trial will stay in Latah County remains to be seen, and has become a point of pretrial contention. Kohberger’s lawyers argue the “pressure to convict” their client in the area showed to be “so severe,” those jurors couldn’t possibly be impartial. In fact, they argue, the “mob mentality” of the tightknit community is the “exact reason” the trial should be moved to another area of Idaho, where it could be heard by people with less of an emotional connection to what has been nearly two years and counting of news coverage about it.
“The traumatized town of Moscow is understandably filled with deeply held prejudgment opinions of guilt,” Kohberger attorney Elisa Massoth said in a recent court filing in their push to move the trial to Ada County, and the state capital of Boise.
Prosecutors, meanwhile, contend that people in Boise have TVs and newspapers too, so moving it would be futile — and the focus instead should be on “crafting remedial measures” to ensure a fair and impartial jury can be seated right where they are.
Both sides have attempted to cite frugality to support their opposing positions.
“Any consideration related to costs of prosecution and defense make Ada County a logical choice with the largest airport in the state,” Kohberger attorney Anne Taylor said in a July filing. “There will be a number of witnesses traveling into Idaho and Ada County is a more cost-effective option,” she said, adding that keeping the trial in more far-flung Moscow “will require most witnesses to travel to Spokane, Washington and rent a car to drive to the Latah County Courthouse.”
In arguing against the change of venue, prosecutors have also pointed to court coffers.
“The transfer of trial to Ada County would come at an extraordinary cost,” prosecuting attorney Bill Thompson wrote in a filing earlier this month. “Whether out-of-state witnesses fly into Lewiston, Spokane, or even Boise, the cost of rental vehicles for a handful of out-of-state witnesses is only a fraction of the total cost picture.”
Were the trial to move to Boise, he said, the need for more witness hotel rentals would skyrocket, as would pulling police and emergency dispatch witnesses from their work “for days, rather than hours, creating a ripple effect of inconvenience.”
“While Defense counsel took this case on a contract basis and will have to travel whether the trial is had in Ada County or in Latah County, the same is not true for the Court, the court reporter, the court clerk, and the Court’s staff attorney,” Thompson said.
“The State, which has the burden of proof and must deal with the logistics of juggling witnesses and trial exhibits would have to relocate both of its lead attorneys, as well as its support and victim services staff, for weeks and likely months,” Thompson continued. “This would come at great expense for lodging, transportation, and per diem.”
A hearing on whether to change the trial’s venue is set for Thursday.
(NEW YORK) — The next great sky show is coming soon, and it is forecast to be one of the most awe-inspiring shooting star displays of 2024.
Appearing annually between late July and mid-August, the Perseid meteor shower is expected to reach its peak on the evening of Sunday, Aug. 11, and before dawn on Monday, Aug. 12, according to NASA.
Marking one of the most plentiful meteor showers in the Northern Hemisphere, the Perseids showcase approximately 50 to 100 meteors per hour, NASA reports.
In addition to the plentiful showcase, the Perseids — which get their name from the constellation Perseus — are famous for bringing fireballs, bright colors and long meteor tails to the night sky.
“Fireballs are larger explosions of light and color that can persist longer than an average meteor streak,” according to NASA.
Skywatchers in the Southern Hemisphere, from the equator to mid-latitudes, will still get a glimpse of the shower, though it will be less pronounced than in the north.
Unfortunately, the agency notes that viewing the meteor shower this year will be “slightly impacted” by the Moon, which will be waxing at 53% in its cycle, lending more brightness in the sky to take away from the view.
The best time to view the Perseids will be past Midnight and it will become more pronounced as the sky darkens, according to NASA.
Additionally, those viewing the shower in remote locations, away from city lights, will have the best chance at a clear view, NASA says.
So, where do the Perseids come from and why do they appear annually?
Meteors are produced from comet particles and debris from broken asteroids. When comets and asteroids navigate around the Sun, they create a train of dust and debris in their wake.
Each year, the Earth rotates through the trail of debris, allowing it to impact the atmosphere and become visible to the naked eye.
(NEW YORK) — The United Auto Workers Union has filed federal labor charges against former President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, the union said Tuesday.
In a thread on X, the union said Trump and Musk had illegally attempted to “threaten and intimidate workers who stand up for themselves by engaging in protected concerted activity, such as strikes.”
Musk — who has endorsed Trump for president — interviewed him for two hours Monday night on X Spaces in a conversation that reached over 1 million users.
During the interview, Trump praised Musk as the “greatest cutter,” seemingly referring to the mass layoffs he conducted when he took over X, then known as Twitter.
“I mean, I look at what you do. You walk in, you say, ‘You want to quit?” Trump said. “I won’t mention the name of the company, but they go on strike, and you go, ‘You’re all gone.'”
Going on strike is considered protected activity under the National Labor Relations Act, and workers cannot legally be fired for doing so.
“When we say Donald Trump is a scab, this is what we mean,” UAW President Shawn Fain said in a statement. “When we say Trump stands against everything our union stands for, this is what we mean.”
“Donald Trump will always side against workers standing up for themselves, and he will always side with billionaires like Elon Musk, who is contributing $45 million a month to a Super PAC to get him elected,” Fain continued. “Both Trump and Musk want working-class people to sit down and shut up, and they laugh about it openly. It’s disgusting, illegal, and totally predictable from these two clowns.”
Musk has denied reports he is contributing $45 million a month to get Trump elected. He has long been outspoken against workers forming unions, however.
On Tuesday, Musk replied to a post on X about the labor charges, criticizing Fain, responding, “The last two UAW presidents went to prison for bribery & corruption and, based on recent news, it looks like this guy will join them!”
ABC News has contacted the Trump campaign and X for comment.
Musk told BBC’s James Clayton in April 2023 during a Spaces interview that the cuts at Twitter were “one of the hardest things he’s had to do.”