A 27-year-old Maryland neo-Nazi and his 34-year-old girlfriend he met while incarcerated have been charged with plotting to knock out power stations around Maryland, the latest in a string of criminal and anti-government domestic terrorists attacks on the nation’s power grid, the Washington Post reports. Brandon Russell, the founder of the neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen, and Sarah Beth Clendaniel are charged with conspiring to destroy an energy facility, sabotage similar to attacks in North Carolina, Washington and other areas. They face up to twenty years in prison if convicted.
The exact manner in which the two met while both were in prison is unspecified; Russell was in federal custody for possessing bombmaking materials and Clendaniel was in a Maryland facility for robbing convenience stores armed with a machete with the help of a 59-year-old male accomplice. Both are still on probation for their previous charges. “Going to prison was worth it because I might not have met you otherwise,” Russell said in one text to Clendainiel, prior to his latest run-in that will likely end in another jail sentence.