Tacoma man charged with sabotaging power grid 6 times. No neo-Nazi link found

A Tacoma man has been charged with sabotaging six electrical substations in western Washington in 2022.

Zachary Rosenthal, 33, is charged with conspiring to destroy the high-voltage equipment in Oakville, Puyallup, Toledo, Tumwater, and Woodland, Washington, in 2022.

The attacks did thousands of dollars of damages to Washington’s power grid.

“From what we can tell, the motive was to knock the power out and then attempt to burglarize local businesses and ATM machines,” assistant United States attorney Todd Greenberg told KUOW.

Investigators found no evidence tying Rosenthal or his co-conspirators to any extremist groups, Greenberg said.

In 2022, white-supremacist groups had been circulating instructions on how to sabotage electrical infrastructure, with the goal of hastening the demise of the federal government and inciting a race war.

Pacific Northwest utilities reported a surge of substation attacks to the FBI in 2022, with at least 15 attacks in six months, as KUOW and OPB previously reported.

At the time, FBI’s Portland Field Office said that the power-grid attacks in Oregon and Washington were carried out using firearms, hand tools, flames, and chains, “possibly in response to an online call for attacks on critical infrastructure.”

RELATED: FBI warned of neo-Nazi plots as attacks on Northwest grid spiked

In July 2024, Rosenthal was charged, along with Nathaniel Cheney, 30, of Centralia, with attacking substations in Oregon City and Clackamas, Oregon. That month, Rosenthal was also indicted for allegedly stealing 24 guns from All That Glitters Jewelry & Loans, a pawn shop in Milwaukie, Oregon, and being a felon in possession of a firearm.

A trial on the Oregon substation attacks is scheduled for November 3.

RELATED: Washington man arrested, charged in connection with 2022 attacks on Oregon electrical grid

Greenberg said other, unnamed co-conspirators in the substation attacks are still under investigation.

He said the defendants committed burglaries and attempted others, unsuccessfully, after knocking out power to thousands of homes and businesses in south Puget Sound and southwestern Washington.

RELATED: FBI offers $50K reward to catch Northwest grid's armed attackers

Rosenthal is currently serving a seven-year sentence for vehicular assault at the Washington Corrections Center near Shelton.

Intentionally damaging an energy facility to interrupt or impair its functioning is a federal crime punishable by up to 20 years in prison.