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White supremacist gets jail in plot to target Baltimore power grid

A Maryland lady associated with a neoNazi group was sentenced to 18 years in prison on Wednesday after admitting to a plot to attack Baltimore's power grid, according to the U.S. Justice Department and court filings.

Sarah Beth Clendaniel, 36, looked for to target five electrical substations around Baltimore, Maryland's biggest city, to further a white supremacist ideology that looked for the collapse of American society, according to district attorneys.

The Justice Department will continue to aggressively counter, disrupt and prosecute those who seek to release these type of hate-fueled attacks that target our critical facilities, endanger whole cities, and threaten our nationwide security, U.S. Chief Law Officer Merrick Garland said in a statement.

Clendaniel pleaded guilty in April to conspiracy to damage an energy center and ownership of a firearm by a convicted felon.

Clendaniel was tape-recorded telling an associate that the strategy, if successful, would completely destroy this whole city, according to prosecutors.

A lawyer for Clendaniel asked a judge to impose a 10-year prison sentence, arguing that Clendaniel had a difficult upbringing and sought meaning and control in hazardous beliefs and planning of destruction, according to a court filing.

Her inherent goodness might at times be buried underneath harmful ideologies, but it is not damaged, the attorney, Sedira Banan, stated.

Clendaniel was charged in 2015 together with Brandon Russell, the founder of a neo-Nazi group called the Atomwaffen Department, according to the Southern Hardship Law Center, a civil rights organization that tracks U.S. hate groups.

Russell is awaiting trial in his case.

(source: Reuters)