COLUMBUS, Ohio — Two men, one of whom is from central Ohio, were sentenced on Friday for conspiring to attack power grids throughout the United States to promote their white supremacy ideology.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Ohio said 21-year-old Christopher Cook, of Columbus, was sentenced to 92 months in prison. Jonathan Frost, 25, of Texas and Indiana, was sentenced to 60 months in prison.
Cook and Frost engaged in a plot to attack the country's energy infrastructure, damage the economy and stoke division in American society in the name of white supremacy. “Revolution is our solution” was a recurring theme in the defendants’ communications to one another, the attorney's office said.
According to court documents, Frost and Cook met in an online chat group in 2019. Frost shared the idea of attacking a power grid with Cook and the two began efforts to recruit others to join in their plan.
As part of the recruitment process, Cook asked literary questions and circulated a book list of readings that promoted the ideology of white supremacy and Neo-Nazism, according to authorities.
The men had a separate propaganda group named "The Front" that planned to take credit for the power grid attack if it was successful.
As part of the conspiracy, each defendant was assigned a substation in a different region of the United States. The plan was to attack the substations, or power grids, with rifles. The defendants believed their plan would cost the government millions of dollars and cause unrest for Americans in the region.
In February 2020, the men met in Columbus to discuss their plot. Frost, who had obtained several untraceable automatic rifles, provided Cook with an AR-47 and the two took the rifle to a shooting range to train, authorities said.
Frost also provided Cook with a suicide necklace during the Columbus meeting. The necklace was filled with fentanyl to be ingested if and when the defendants were caught by law enforcement. Cook expressed his commitment to dying in furtherance of the mission.
“The individuals sentenced today created a suicide pact to sow hatred and commit terrorist acts intended to destabilize our country,” stated FBI Cincinnati Special Agent in Charge J. William Rivers. “Through rigorous investigation and law enforcement partnerships, their radical plan was halted. Today’s sentence is a message to anyone with similar plans that they will be disrupted and held accountable for conspiring to commit violence.”
A third man, Jackson Sawall, of Wisconsin, was also charged and pleaded guilty last year. His case is pending.
