WASHINGTON, DC (WLNE) — A Rhode Island man is among a group of three men sentenced Thursday in a racially-motivated scheme to destroy an energy facility. Liam Collins, 25, of Johnston, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for aiding and abetting the interstate transportation of unregistered firearms. Collins, along with Paul James Kryscuk of Idaho and Justin Wade Hermanson of North Carolina, “conspired, prepared, and trained to attack America’s power grid in order to advance their violent white supremacist ideology,” according to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland. The three men researched, discussed and reviewed a previous attack on the power grid by an unknown group which used assault-style rifles in an attempt to explode a power substation. Collins stole military gear, including magazines for assault-style rifles and had them delivered to the other defendants between 2017 and 2020. Information on firearms, explosives and nerve toxins was gathered by co-defendant Jordan Duncan and distributed to Kryscuk and Collins. Kryscuk was also found in possession of a handwritten list of a dozen intersections and places in Idaho and surrounding states including places containing a transformer, substation or other component of the power grid for the northwest United States. Collins and Kryscuk were members of an online forum called “Iron March,” which is a gathering point for young neo-Nazis to organize and recruit. The defendants conducted training in a desert base near Boise, Idaho, and video footage revealed the members firing short barrel rifles and assault-style rifles. The video ends with the defendants giving the “Heil Hitler” sign beneath the image of a black sun, a Nazi symbol and the phrase “Come home white man.”   Categories: News, Rhode Island