TACOMA, Wash. — A 40-year-old Puyallup man was sentenced Friday after pleading guilty to conspiracy to destroy energy facilities in the vandalism of four substations last December.
Jeremy Crahan was sentenced in U.S. District Court to serve 18 months in prison.
In a plea agreement, Crahan admitted he helped Matthew Greenwood vandalize four power substations and plotted to fell trees to take out power lines. Crahan shared in the planning and provided a lookout during the attacks.
According to the facts stated during the plea agreement, the two schemed to disrupt power so they could break into ATMs and businesses. On Dec. 25, 2022, they damaged substations in Puyallup, Spanaway, and two in Graham, causing 30,000 people to lose power and causing $3 million in damages.
“These defendants launched a scheme that left thousands of people in the cold and dark in the middle of winter, a scheme that was dangerous – for them and for the workers that had to make repairs to the high voltage equipment,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Tessa M. Gorman. “Their motivation was greed – but all they got was a small amount of money from a restaurant cash register while doing more than $235,000 in damage.”
After that vandalism, Greenwood and Crahan looked for ways to cause additional outages by felling trees. They were arrested before they could carry out that plan.
Greenwood has also pleaded guilty and is scheduled to be sentenced in January 2024.
The FBI is investigating the case with help from the Pierce County Sheriff's Department, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Tacoma Police Department, Washington State Department of Corrections and Federal Protective Service.