Three men who plotted to attack electricity substations in a white supremacist bid to sow national unrest pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorism, the Justice Department announced Wednesday.
Federal prosecutors in Ohio said the three planned to disrupt the electricity grid in order to sow civil unrest and economic uncertainty in furtherance of their white supremacist cohort. They hoped to cause unrest and trigger a race war, but the plot never really got past the planning stage, prosecutors said.
After initially claiming innocence, Christopher Brenner Cook, 20, of Columbus, Ohio; Jonathan Allen Frost, 24, of West Lafayette, Indiana, and of Katy, Texas; and Jackson Matthew Sawall, 22, of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, pleaded guilty.
Justice Department officials said the three represented a serious threat to the nation.
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“These defendants conspired to use violence to sow hate, create chaos, and endanger the safety of the American people,” U.S. Attorney Kenneth L. Parker for the Southern District of Ohio said in a statement.
