Last of Five Defendants with Ties to White Supremacy and Who Were Charged with Targeting Energy Facility Enters Guilty Plea

WILMINGTON, N.C. – Today, Jordan Duncan, 29, pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting the manufacturing of a firearm as charged in a superseding criminal information filed in the Eastern District of North Carolina. This crime carries a maximum punishment of 10 years’ imprisonment.  Duncan is a former Marine assigned previously to Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina.

According to court documents, Duncan, with co-defendants, Paul James Kryscuk, 38, Liam Collins, 25, Justin Wade Hermanson, 25, and Joseph Maurino, 25, researched, discussed, and reviewed at length a previous attack on the power grid by an unknown group.  The group depicted in the attack used assault-style rifles in an attempt to explode a power substation. 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 information, some military-owned, regarding firearms, explosives, and nerve toxins and shared that information with Kryscuk and Collins.  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, substation, or other component of the power grid for the northwest United States. 

Previously filed charges alleged 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.  Collins and Kryscuk recruited additional members, including Duncan, Hermanson, and Maurino, and conducted training, including a live-fire training in the desert near Boise, Idaho.  From video footage recorded by the members during the training, Kryscuk, Duncan, and others produced a montage video of their training.  In the video, the participants are seen firing short barrel rifles and other assault-type rifles, and the end of the propaganda video shows the four participants outfitted in AtomWaffen masks giving the “Heil Hitler” sign, beneath the image of a black sun, a Nazi symbol.  The last frame bears the phrase, “Come home white man.”  Prior to their arrests, Collins and Duncan had relocated to Idaho from North Carolina and Texas, respectively, to be near Kryscuk.

Kryscuk, Collins, Maurino and Hermanson earlier entered pleas of guilty to various crimes: on February 15, 2022, Kryscuk entered a plea of guilty to conspiracy to destroy an energy facility, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years imprisonment; on October 24, 2023, Collins pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting the interstate transportation of unregistered firearms, which carries a maximum of 10 years’ imprisonment;  and on March 8, 2023 and April 11, 2023, respectively, Hermanson and Maurino pleaded guilty to  conspiracy to manufacture firearms and ship interstate, which carries a maximum sentence of five years’ imprisonment.

All five defendants now await sentencing before Chief United States District Judge Richard E. Myers II.

Michael Easley, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, made the announcement. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service, the FBI Salt Lake City and Charlotte Field Offices with assistance from Fields Offices in Boston, New York, and Newark, the Boise Police Department, the United States Postal Inspection Service, Homeland Security Investigations, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, are investigating the case.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Barbara Kocher of the Eastern District of North Carolina and Trial Attorney John Cella of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, are prosecuting the case, with assistance from Assistant United States Attorneys for the District of Idaho, District of New Jersey, Eastern District of New York, and the District of Rhode Island.

Related court documents and information can be found on the website of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina or on PACER by searching for Case No. 7:20-CR-167-M.