No new trial for white supremacist convicted in plot to disrupt Baltimore power grid

Dan Belson, The Baltimore Sun on May 5, 2025

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BALTIMORE — A federal judge rejected a white supremacist’s request to be tried again after the Florida resident was convicted of a conspiracy charge stemming from a plot to disrupt the Baltimore-area power grid.

Lawyers for Brandon Clint Russell, 29, had filed the motion for a new trial after the Department of Justice revealed additional payments by the FBI to an undercover informant who testified as a witness.

U.S. District Judge James K. Bredar wrote in his opinion last week that the timing of the undisclosed payment, over $7,000 in expenses paid on the first day of jury selection, “raises some concern.” But the judge did not believe the payment was serious enough to overturn the guilty verdict and re-try Russell.

The witness, who testified that he exchanged instant messages with Russell about “putting holes in transformers” to disrupt the power grid, had disclosed during the trial that the FBI had been paying him for several years as a confidential informant. A federal contractor by day, the witness testified that he had been paid roughly $70,000 over the course of four years by identifying illegal activity in online spaces for the FBI.

The Justice Department disclosed the additional $7,000 payment in March, over a month after jurors found Russell guilty, and said it was for the informant’s services and expenses for his trial preparation. Russell’s lawyers argued the informant had “committed perjury by failing to disclose” the additional payment, and wrote that they weren’t able to cross-examine him “regarding his untruthful testimony.”

Bredar wrote in his opinion that he was satisfied the jury’s verdict against Russell was “just” and that there was “no reasonable probability that a different result would have [been] obtained had the jury been informed of the [additional] payment.”

The judge cautioned in his opinion that the additional payment, about 10% of what the informant had disclosed to jurors, was “just on the threshold of significance.”

Russell is scheduled to be sentenced in June, though his lawyers have also asked Bredar to delay the sentencing hearing by a month. Bredar had not ruled on that motion as of Monday afternoon.

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