18 years for woman who hoped to destroy Baltimore power grid and spark a race war

Enlarge / Photographs included in an FBI affidavit show a woman believed to be Sarah Beth Clendaniel. (credit: FBI)

A Maryland woman was sentenced to 18 years in prison and a lifetime of supervised release “for conspiring to destroy the Baltimore region power grid,” the US Justice Department announced yesterday. Sarah Beth Clendaniel, 36, admitted as part of a plea agreement in May to conspiracy to damage energy facilities.

“Sarah Beth Clendaniel sought to ‘completely destroy’ the city of Baltimore by targeting five power substations as a means of furthering her violent white supremacist ideology,” US Attorney General Merrick Garland said. The planned shooting attacks were prevented by law enforcement.

Family members of Clendaniel spoke to the media last year about her beliefs. “She would have no problem saying she’s racist,” her nephew Daniel Clites told the Associated Press. “She wanted to bring attention to her cause.”