Marine veteran pleads guilty to federal weapons charge in neo-Nazi plot

A Marine veteran, the last of five men in a neo-Nazi group indicted on allegations of planning attacks on the U.S. power grid and threatening to shoot Black Lives Matter protestors, has pleaded guilty to a federal firearms charge.

Jordan Duncan, 29, of Boise, Idaho, also known as “soldier,” to his co-defendants, pleaded guilty on Monday in federal court in Wilmington, North Carolina, near his former duty station Camp Lejeune, to aiding and abetting the manufacturing of a firearm, according to a U.S. Attorney’s Office release.

The crime carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years. He is scheduled for sentencing on Sept. 24, according to court records.

Raymond Tarlton, one of Duncan’s defense attorneys, told Marine Corps Times in an email Wednesday, “The defense is glad that the case was resolved with a plea to an isolated charge of aiding another in the manufacture of a rifle and that the charge relating to an allegation of being in a conspiracy to attack the power grid, which Mr. Duncan denies is true, is being dismissed as part of the plea deal.”

Duncan served in the Marine Corps from 2013 to 2018, according to court documents. He later worked as a contractor for both the Air Force and Navy.

A grand jury indicted Duncan and fellow Marines Liam Collins, 25, and Justin Hermanson, 25, former New Jersey Army National Guard member Joseph Maurino, 25, along with Paul Kryscuk, 38, on charges related to a plot to attack the U.S. power grid and shoot Black Lives Matter protesters.

Collins, leader of the neo-Nazi group, served in the same unit with Duncan and Hermanson, according to court documents. Collins served in the Marines from 2017 to 2020 when he was kicked out. The nature of his discharge is not listed in court documents.

Collins, of Johnston, Rhode Island, joined the Marine Corps with the intention of receiving military training to further his white supremacist goals.

He posted on the now-defunct web forum Iron March under the aliases “Disciple” and “Niezgoda,” and described his neo-Nazi group as “a modern day SS” that hiked, camps, worked out and conducted live-firing training together, according to the indictment. Collins also stated the group planned to “buy a lot of land,” and posted that everyone in the group must complete military service.

“I’ll be in the USMC for 4 years while my comrades work on the groups [sic] physical formation,” Collins posted in 2016, Marine Corps Times previously reported. “It will take years to gather all the experience and intelligence that we need to utilize — but that’s what makes it fun.”

Duncan joined Collin’s neo-Nazi group while at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, and then moved home to Idaho after separating from the Marines, according to the indictment. Duncan and Collins discussed shooting Black Lives Matter protestors in Boise, Idaho, at around that time. A few weeks later, FBI agents notified two Black Lives Matter co-founders that their names were on a list kept by another paramilitary group member, The Associated Press reported.

Prosecutors said the four men researched and discussed a previous attack on a power grid by an unknown group that used assault-style rifles try and explode a power substation, according to court documents.

Duncan specifically was accused of gathering a “library of information” to further the attacks both while he was serving in the Marines and during his work as a military contractor. He modified a rifle to make the barrel less than 16 inches, a violation of firearms law unless the owner has proper federal permits and licensing.

Between 2017 and 2020, Kryscuk manufactured firearms for Collins ― who stole military gear, including magazines for assault-style rifles, while stationed at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. Over that period, Duncan gathered information not only on the firearms but also explosives and nerve toxins, which he then shared it with Collins and Kryscuk, according to court documents.

In mid-2020, Collins asked others to buy 50 pounds of an explosive, the Associated Press reported. In October 2020, officials confiscated a handwritten list from Kryscuk of approximately a dozen intersections and locations in Idaho and surrounding states, including locations of transformers, substations or other components of the power grid in the northwest United States.

During a hearing in December 2020, prosecutors played a 90-second recruitment showed Duncan firing gunshots, participating in military-style exercises and flashing “Heil Hitler” salutes with three other members while wearing skull masks associated with a neo-Nazi group called Atomwaffen Division, according to the indictment.

All five co-defendants have now pleaded guilty to firearms-related charges. Collins, Hermanson and Kryscuk are scheduled for July 23. Maurino’s sentencing has been continued until further order of the court.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.