Three men who were charged last October for illegally manufacturing weapons were back in court on Friday, this time for allegedly targetting an energy facility.
Paul James Kryscuk, 35, Liam Collins, 21, Jordan Duncan, 26 are charged with conspiracy to damage the property of an energy facility in the United States. A fourth man, 22-year-old Joseph Maurino was also charged.
The four were said to have researched, discussed, and reviewed at length a previous attack on the power grid by an unknown group. The group in that attack used assault-style rifles in an attempt to explode a power substation, according to the indictment.
Collins and Duncan are former Camp Lejeune Marines whose last duty station was in Jacksonville. Kryscuk was also cited on weapons charged with the pair last year.
Between 2017 and 2020, Kryscuk manufactured firearms while Collins stole military gear, including magazines for assault-style rifles, and had them delivered to the other defendants.
During that time, Duncan gathered a library of military-owned information regarding firearms, explosives, and nerve toxins and shared that information with Kryscuk and Collins.
The indictment also alleges the defendants discussed using homemade Thermite, a combination of metal powder and metal oxide which burns at over 4000°F to burn through and destroy power transformers.
In mid-2020, Collins asked others to each purchase 50 pounds of Tannerite, a binary explosive containing aluminum powder and oxidizers, and can be used to make Thermite.
In October 2020, a handwritten list of approximately one dozen intersections and places in Idaho and surrounding states was discovered in Kryscuk’s possession, including intersections and/or places containing a transformer, substations, or other components of the power grid for the northwest United States.
If destroyed, the damage caused could exceed $100,000.
Collins was discharged from the military on Sept. 21, while Duncan was discharged on Sept. 8, 2018
Along with Kryscuk, they were indicted for conspiring to manufacture, transport, and sell hard-to-obtain firearms and firearm parts in a manner that would hide these purchases from the federal government.
Before their arrests, Collins and Duncan had recently relocated from North Carolina and Texas, respectively, to Boise to be near Kryscuk.
The previous indictments allege that Collins and Kryscuk were members of and made multiple posts on the “Iron March” forum, a gathering point for young neo-Nazis to organize and recruit for extremist organizations until the forum was closed in late 2017.
Collins and Kryscuk met through the forum and expanded their group using an encrypted messaging application as an alternate means of communication outside of the forum.
Base officials previously told The Daily News that Duncan was a cryptologic language analysis during his enlistment.
Collins and Kryscuk recruited additional members, including Duncan and Maurino, and conducted training, including a live-fire training in the desert near Boise.
Kryscuk, Duncan, and others produced a montage video of their training from video footage recorded by the members during the training.
In the video, the participants are seen firing short barrel rifles and other assault-type rifles. The end of the propaganda video shows the four participants outfitted in AtomWaffen masks giving the “Heil Hitler” sign beneath the ” Heil Hitler ” sign image of a black sun, a Nazi symbol.
The last frame bears the phrase, “Come home, white man.”
If convicted of all counts against them, the defendants face up to 40 years imprisonment.
G. Norman Acker, III, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, made the announcement. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service, the FBI, ATF, Homeland Security, and United States Postal Service are investigating the case.
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