A group of three men planned to carry out attacks on the U.S. power grid to cause civil unrest and, they hoped, incite a “race war,” according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Separated geographically but united by white supremacist and neo-Nazi beliefs, the trio met online in the fall of 2019 and eventually began scheming “a disturbing plot, in furtherance of white supremacist ideology,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security Matthew Olsen, said in a news release.

Jackson Matthew Sawall, 22, of Oshkosh, Wisconsin; Jonathan Allen Frost, 24, of West Lafayette, Indiana, and Katy, Texas; and 20-year-old Christopher Brenner Cook, of Columbus, Ohio, pleaded guilty to terrorism charges on Feb. 23.

According to officials, the trio intended to cause power outages by attacking power substations in their respective regions of the country. Specifically, they were going to use rifles to shoot transformers, “which members of the group estimated would cost the government millions to recover,” a plea document read.

“There were also conversations about how the possibility of the power being out for many months could cause some serious change or straight-out war, even a race war; additionally, that without power across the country, it could cause the next Great Depression, people wouldn’t show up to work, the economy could crash and there would be a ripe opportunity for potential (white) leaders to rise up,” according to officials.

By February 2020, Frost was able to provide the group with AR-47 rifles he had constructed himself with parts he bought online, according to the document. They met up in Ohio, practiced with the rifles, and continued organizing their plan.

Frost also gave his co-conspirators “suicide necklaces,” carrying a large dose of fentanyl intended to cause lethal overdose, for use in case they were captured by police, the release said. Investigators say Cook and Sawall expressed that they were willing to die for their cause.

Following that meeting in early 2020, Cook and Sawall spray painted a swastika beneath a bridge at an Ohio park, with the words “Join the Front,” according to officials.

They were going to do more along those lines but Sawall was pulled over by a police officer, leading the 22-year-old to open his suicide necklace and swallow his fentanyl dose, which did not kill him.

The following month, Cook and Frost tried gathering recruits and went to meet with one potential candidate in Oklahoma, but they lost their phone and couldn’t be reached, court documents said.

“Instead, [a] person who found the phone and the Nazi propaganda on it answered their calls and told them the phone would be turned into the police, which caused Frost and Cook to start destroying their online communication accounts,” according to court documents.

FBI agents raided the homes of all three men in August 2020, finding weaponry, bomb-making materials, neo-Nazi reading materials and videos, and “detailed U.S. power infrastructure information.”

The men were charged with providing material support to terrorism, which carries a sentence of up to 15 years in prison, according to the Justice Department. They currently await sentencing.

Source: Mitchell Willetts/Star-Telegram.com

Date Posted: Saturday, February 26th, 2022 , Total Page Views: 445