Former Camp Lejeune Marines among 3 sentenced in neo-Nazi weapons plot

WILMINGTON, N.C. (WGHP) — Three men, two with ties to North Carolina, have been sentenced to prison after they were charged with a conspiracy that involved shipping weapons interstate and accused of planning to attack electrical substations.

On Friday, Liam Montgomery Collins, Justin Wade Hermanson and Paul James Kryscuk were sentenced to prison for shipping weapons interstate as part of an investigation into a plot to destroy electrical infrastructure and ultimately stage a neo-Nazi “takeover of local government and industry,” according to court documents.

Collins, a New Jersey man who was stationed at Camp Lejeune at the time of the crimes, was sentenced to 10 years in prison with three years of supervised release on the charge of interstate transportation of a firearm not registered as required. Charges of “destruction of an energy facility” and conspiracy were dismissed when he pleaded guilty.

Hermanson, a North Carolina man who was in the same Marine unit as Collins at Camp Lejeune , was sentenced to one year and nine months in prison and three years of supervised release on a charge of conspiracy to manufacture firearms and ship interstate, with an interstate transportation charge dismissed.

Kryscuk was sentenced to six and a half years in prison and three years of supervised release on a charge of conspiracy to destroy an energy facility, with manufacturing and shipping firearms charges dismissed as part of his guilty plea.

At the time of their arrest, the three men lived in Boise, Idaho.

Background

In October 2020 , Collins, Kryscuk and Jordan Duncan, a North Carolina man who was stationed at Camp Lejeune at the time, were charged with conspiracy to unlawfully manufacture, possess and distribute various weapons and weapon accessories. All of the charges came from the Eastern District of North Carolina.

Documents filed by Duncan in August state that the Naval Criminal Investigative Service was investigating after Collins claimed to the other defendants that he could get weapons without serial numbers, as well as silencers. Investigators traced money spent on the purchase of a firearm from Collins to Kryscuk, who pleaded guilty in February 2022.

In November 2020, Hermanson was charged with one count of conspiracy to manufacture firearms and ship interstate. After two superseding indictments, he pleaded guilty on March 8, 2022.

In June of 2021, Joseph Maurino , a New Jersey National Guardsman, was also indicted, accused of supplying untraceable guns to the other men. Maurino pleaded guilty in April 2023. It is unclear when he will be sentenced.

In August 2021 , Kryscuk, Collins, Duncan and Maurino received a third superseding indictment. They were charged with conspiracy to damage property of a United States energy facility.

The indictment alleges that the four men researched and discussed at length a previous attack on power infrastructure by an unknown group, using assault-style rifles. The indictment alleges that for three years, between 2017 and 2020, Kryscuk manufactured guns and Collins, stationed at Camp Lejeune at the time, stole military gear and had it delivered to the other men. Duncan gathered “a library of information,” some military-owned, about weapons, toxins and explosives.

Documents also go into detail about how Collins and Kryscuk met on “Iron March,” a now-defunct forum for neo-Nazis to organize and recruit. They moved to encrypted messaging to talk outside of the forum, allegedly recruiting the other three accused men.

Video footage obtained shows the men shooting guns, wearing “AtomWaffen-masks” while giving Nazi salutes, according to court documents and first shared by RawStory . The phrase “come home white man” is seen in the video. Atomwaffen Division was a violent neo-Nazi sect co-founded by Brandon Russell, who is currently awaiting trial for his own accusations of conspiracy to destroy energy facilities in Maryland.

Duncan pleaded guilty in June 2024 and is scheduled to be sentenced in September.

Similar cases

In April, Jonathan Frost was sentenced to five years in prison , and Christopher Cook was sentenced to seven years and eight months in prison, both for a count of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists. Both men will be under supervision for two and a half years after release. A third conspirator, Jonathan Sawall, was ordered to be hospitalized.

The three men pleaded guilty to the plot to attack power substations in multiple states in February of 2022 .

The indictment states that the men met online and began planning to attack electrical infrastructure around the country, with each man assigned specific locations. When they got together in Columbus, they graffitied a bridge at an area park with a swastika and the words “Join the Front.” Court documents indicate they were taken back into custody and had various electronics seized on Dec. 5, 2022 .

In February 2023, Russell , and his girlfriend, Sarah Clendaniel, were charged with plotting an attack against the power grid in Baltimore, Maryland, with Russell being accused of sharing a YouTube video about the attack on Duke Energy substations in Moore County as part of their planning.

Substation attacks in North Carolina

While several people have been sentenced or charged for plotting electrical substation attacks that never came to fruition, over the span of a few short months, there were three separate incidents of substations being shot at in North Carolina.

The first, which took place on Nov. 11, 2022, in Jones County , left 12,000 people without power for a couple of hours after a Carteret-Craven Electrical Cooperative substation was shot.

On Dec. 3, 2022, two Duke Energy substations in Moore County were shot. One person died as a direct result of the Moore County power outage, a death that the medical examiner ruled a homicide .

Then, on Jan. 17, 2023, an EnergyUnited substation was shot in Randolph County , but no one lost power. The FBI is offering thousands in rewards for information on these three shootings.

Two weeks after the Moore County shooting , at the beginning of Hannukah, a banner adorned with Nazi imagery advertising a Telegram channel for the “National Socialist Resistance Front” was unfurled on a highway overpass in Vass, and a second banner was found on Christmas in Cameron. The Telegram shown on the banner had numerous Nazi memes and graphics, including what appeared to be an image, posted just two days after the Jones County shooting, of a person’s silhouette in front of an electrical substation with the words “bring it all down,” a phrase that was also featured on the first banner.

The Moore County Sheriff’s Office said at the time that they were investigating these incidents separately .

Court documents released last year detail a tip officials got about a man who said his coworker claimed to be part of a right-wing group stating intention to damage the electrical grid in Moore County. They are also looking for a light-colored van that was in the area on the night of the Moore County attack.

In early June 2024, gunfire damaged Duke Energy equipment in Durham , causing an oil leak and a fire as well as a brief power outage. The FBI is investigating.

No charges have been filed in any of the shootings.

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