KATY, Texas — A Katy man was one of two people sentenced Friday for their roles in a white supremacist domestic terrorism plot, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
The DOJ said Christopher Brenner Cook, 20, of Columbus, Ohio, and Jonathan Allen Frost, 24, of Katy and West Lafayette, Indiana, both pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to provide material support to terrorists in a plot to attack the nation's power grids.
Frost was sentenced to 60 months in prison while Cook was sentenced to 92 months in prison.
Court documents said that Frost and Cook met in an online chat group and shared the idea of attacking a power grid, according to the DOJ. The two began efforts to recruit others in the plot within weeks.
The DOJ said the plan was for each defendant to attack a different substation in different regions across the nation with "powerful rifles."
"They had conversations about how the possibility of the power being out for many months could cause war, even a race war, and induce the next Great Depression," the department said.
Frost had also provided Cook and another defendant, Jackson Matthew Sawall, 22, of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, "suicide necklaces" when they met up in Columbus, Ohio in 2020 to discuss their plot, according to the DOJ. The necklaces were filled with fentanyl with the intent to ingest it if they were caught.
The DOJ said that while in Ohio, the three painted a swastika flag under a bridge with spray paint and had plans to distribute more propaganda before they were "derailed during a traffic stop." Officials said Sawall swallowed his "suicide pill" at this time but still survived.
Sawall has also been charged and has pleaded guilty in the scheme and is expected to be sentenced at a later date.
After the Ohio meeting, the DOJ said Cook and Frost drove to Texas in March 2020 and that Cook attempted to recruit various juveniles to take part in their plot.
"At the root of every terrorist plot – whether foreign or domestic – is hate,” said U.S. Attorney Kenneth L. Parker for the Southern District of Ohio. “As a society, we must be vigilant against online radicalization, which is a powerful tool used by extremists to recruit both juveniles and adults.”
According to the DOJ, the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force in Columbus, Milwaukee, Indianapolis and Houston investigated the case.